Deuxième Souffle, Le (1966) review

Cold, mechanized crime picture by Melville features tough-as-hell Lino Ventura springing himself from jail, meeting up with old "pals" and getting involved in another armed robbery. Literally every potential droplet of emotion has been siphoned out of the movie, leaving the metallic shell of its story to robotically stomp softly and not say very much - the one time Ventura starts to talk, he mistakenly blurts out way more than he should. It carries with it the same Melville obsessions with (a.) the style of Hollywood noirs and (b.) the honor code of criminals - not to mention (c.) carefully orchestrated set-pieces - though allowing the one-dimensional thugs some kind of personality (to interfere with all those crisp shots) is probably asking too much.