Le Doulos

Le Doulos is slang for underworld informer, and Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1962 policier, which is being re-released, has a rat’s-tale cleverness as curlicued as that of The Departed. It’s hard to say who’s loyal and who’s a cad, since both of the main characters lie through their teeth: Serge Reggiani as a thief who’s like a rumpled Rowan Atkinson, and Jean-Paul Belmondo as a smoothie in a trench coat who can slap a babe around rougher than Bogart. Even back in 1962, Melville made the usual suspects feel new by wrapping them in gorgeous desolation.