When this film first began, I was pretty pleased. I loved the dialog and the look of the crooks (with trench coats and fedora hats)--it was almost like a late 40s-50s example of film noir but in color. It's obvious that director Melville was trying to copy, to an extent, this retro look and style.

If you are an American, the first thing you'll probably notice apart from some noir touches is that two of the gang members in this film are American actors whose lines are all dubbed into French. Richard Crenna and Michael Conrad (from "Hill Street Blues") have major parts in the film. This isn't super surprising as it was pretty common in Europe for studios to use American actors and dub their lines--especially in Italian films. My assumption is that the American actors' star power helped ticket sales, though in some of these cases the actors did NOT contribute well to the film. In some cases this is because the dubbing was done very poorly--fortunately, in this film it's pretty good.

The film consists of showing the crime and investigation from two alternating views--the crooks and the cop (Alain Delon). The film bounces back and forth quite often but manages to do this effectively. The caper is a bank robbery in which one of the gang members is shot. However, it's clear they are professionals and they've taken a lot of steps to cover their tracks and effectively hide the loot. Interestingly, however, there turn out to be a few twists. First, the initial robbery was not THE big score in the film--this would come later. Second, while the scene made little sense (why sneak into a hospital to kill a guy you could have killed much easier before YOU dropped him off at the hospital in the first place?!),it was an wild twist to see how the handled the gang member who was shot. This scene with the beautiful Catherine Deneuve was quite shocking...and effective. Third, Delon's role turns out to intersect with the gang in a way you might not expect.

Unfortunately, while the film is handled very well in most ways and shows how wonderfully you can make a film with such economy of language (there is VERY little dialog in the film),a major problem in the movie starts at the 53 minute point. The action switches to a train and you see one of the sloppiest uses of models I've seen since the last time I watched a Godzilla film! It looks just a kid's HO-gauge train set and a cheap helicopter model---which is exactly what they must be! Pretty sloppy. What also bothers me about this is that I noticed some score of 10 among the reviews. How can you give a film a 10 with such sloppy effects? I don't expect mega-million dollar effects, but this was just botched badly and looks bad...and a 10 would seem to imply perfection or at least near-perfection. Plus, plot-wise, don't you think someone on the train would have noticed a helicopter hovering just a few yards above the train for so long?! Fortunately, following these dumb scenes the film DID get better! Up until the silly scenes, I might have given this film a 9. However, considering how many scenes were done with crappy looking models, I think a fair overall score is 7 as it still held my interest. Pretty good and with a lot of potential to be a lot better--unfortunately, it's not among Melville's best though it turned out to be his last.

"Dirty Money" is a film of several titles, "A Cop" and "Un flic," but it all adds up to the last film of Jean-Pierre Melville, written and directed by him, a noir starring Alain Delon and Richard Crenna - and Crenna speaks French, no less, though I understand he spoke French with accent and was dubbed later.

The film begins with a bank robbery that takes place in a seaside town. One of the robbers is badly wounded and eventually is taken to a clinic. The leader of the gang is Simon (Crenna),who owns a nightclub. And this robbery is nothing -- he's got something bigger, much bigger planned.

Police Commissioner Edouard Coleman (Delon),a habitué of Simon's nightclub, is on the case. Handsome and smooth-looking, he's not above slapping his transvestite informant or anyone else, for that matter. He and Simon are in love with the same woman, Cathy (the stunning Catherine Deneuve, somewhat wasted in a supporting role) and come into contact at the club. Simon is playing a dangerous game.

What makes this film so fabulous are the non-speaking/non-music sequences, sometimes 20 minutes in length. Absolutely fascinating - my favorite was Simon lowered onto a moving train via helicopter, changing his clothes, hiding them, committing robbery, changing his clothes again, and being lifted back onto the helicopter. FANTASTIC.

Don't miss this - fascinating, absorbing, and exciting.

A gang formed by Simon (Richard Crenna),Paul Weber (Riccardo Cucciolla),Louis Costa (Michael Conrad) and Marc Albouis (André Pousse) heist a remote bank during a stormy afternoon. However Marc is seriously wounded and they leave him in a clinic after hiding the money in a sophisticated scheme. Meanwhile the cold Police Inspector Edouard Coleman (Alain Delon) is investigating the murder of a woman and his informer, the travesty Gaby (Valérie Wilson),tells about a shipment of heroin carried by the mule Suitcase Matthew (Léon Minisini) by the train to Lisbon. Then Coleman heads to a nightclub owned by Simon, who is his friend, to meet his mistress Cathy (Catherine Deneuve). When Simon learns that the police force is tracking down the wounded thief in hospitals and clinics and the dragnet will certainly find Marc, he goes with the gang and Cathy to kill him. Then Simon plots the robbery of Matthew's drug in the train using a helicopter. When Coleman intercepts Matthew, he does not find the drug shipment and believes that Gaby is not giving good information to him. But when Coleman discover that Marc Albouis is dead, he connects him to Louis Costa and then to the unemployed middle-aged banker Paul Weber and Simon. They bug Simon's telephone and Soleman heads to confront his friend.

"Un Flic", a.k.a. "Dirty Money", is a gritty police story and last movie by Jean-Pierre Melville. The story is cold, with few dialogs and the bank and train robberies are very well detailed through long scenes. Inspector Edouard Coleman is an emotionless character near the thin line between right and wrong. He sees his investigation of drugs entwining with the bank heist and the leader of the gang is his friend. Further Coleman and Simon share the same mistress that is capable to kill a man injecting air in his vein and this weird threesome seems to affect his last attitude. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Expresso para Bordeaux" ("Express Train to Bordeaux")

Note: On 18 My 2019, I saw this film again. My new vote is eight.