LE DOULOS Movie Review

Doulos—The Finger Man

Jean-Paul Belmondo is a shady hoodlum who's suspected of being a police informer (a stool-pigeon/finger-man, or doulos) by the criminals who number themselves among his associates. As the film unfolds, we're let in on the secrets of this underworld bit by bit, tantalizingly, as the suspense mounts and the shocks and unexpected twists both surprise and delight us. The biggest surprise is saved for the end, however; as the late, wonderfully gifted film critic (and friend) Kathy Huffhines put it: “a simple phone call is the world's suavest good-bye…you discover that the director himself has been a stoolie and that life itself is the real double-crosser.” With the recent restoration and rediscovery of Melville's great Le Samourai, it's time for a similar rehabilitation for the spectacularly atmospheric, gloriously corrupt Le Doulos.

NEXT STOP … Bob le Flambeur, Le Samourai, Chinatown

1961 108m/B FR Serge Reggiani, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Michel Piccoli; D: Jean-Pierre Melville. VHS INT, TPV