Search - Dirty Money (Un Flic) on DVD

Minor Masterpiece

Michael C. Smith | San Francisco, CA United States | 11/12/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

""Un Flic" (A Cop) the last film by Jean-Pierre Melville begins beautifully. The opening shots set during a storm in an Atlantic coast town in France, which introduced the bank robbery are incredibly beautiful and tense. Melville sets up the scene in such a way that you are on the edge of your seat through out this amazing sequence. The heat of the film is turned up against the contrast of these icy shots and as the story progresses it more or less never lets up and holds it's grip ever tightening as the cop, Alain Delon tracks down the crime ring that is much closer than he thinks.

Extraordinary cinematograph is a highlight of this film and one gets glimpses of watercolor smudged barren streets of Paris in the winter that are gorgeous. This film has its flaws but they are too much of a distraction. Most jarring is the obvious use of models during a very tense scene on the train.

A stunning stand out in the film is Valerie Wilson as Gaby a transvestite who is a stool pidgin for Delon. Touching she is and there is the intriguing undertow of the possibility of romance between the cop and the cross dresser. I am never quite convinced that Delon is merely using her attraction to him to his advantage. Wilson is wonderful in the role, a rare un-judging look at a denizen of this sub-culture.

Delon is Delon, which in my opinion is simply great. Fascinating to watch. Catherine Deneuve is little more that window dressing but a cool dish for the eyes non-the less. The real surprise in the film is Richard Crenna. He looks to be speaking his own lines in French and gives a nuanced wonderful performance as the head of the crime gang. He is utterly watchable and after a few moments you forget he is an American actor in a French film.


Over all "Un Flic" or as it is called here "Dirty Money" is a fun ride for fans of the heist genre. And on a final note, the last shots of the film are raw and haunting.
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Un flic (1974)

Enrique Benamira | Madrid, Spain | 05/22/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"According to some bloggers, this a new edition, made by Lions Gate, of "Un flic" (1974), the very last movie of French filmmaker Jean-Pierre Melville ("Bob le Flambeur", "L'armée des ombres", "Le cercle rouge"). Please correct title ("Dirty money") and actors links, mistaken with "Dirty money" (1994). Maybe "Un flic" has not been unanimously appreciated by critics and the box office but there is no doubt that it is a superb film noir done by a genre master, plenty of melancholy. Full of remarkable sequences, such as the opening one, a bank hold-up filmed under the rain. Pay attention to Alain Delon playing the piano at Deneuve's night club. Excellent performance by Richard Crenna."

Dirty Delon

EddieLove | NYC, USA | 12/01/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Delon's a Paris cop two-timing his night-club-owning buddy Richard Crenna by sneaking around with Crenna's girlfriend Denueve. Meanwhile, both of them are hiding their criminal doings from Delon, in this crime film drawn in Melville's gorgeous, steel/blue pallet. Things start off with a beautiful stormswept seaside bank heist. Later, a helicopter to train takedown is laughably rendered with miniatures - not the master's finest hour. But when Delon takes to the streets with an angry scowl or unwinds at the piano - it's tres cool."