Rififi

Directed by Jules Dassin, Rififi follows a crew of criminals, led by Jean Servais’ Tony, as they plot to rob a cache of jewels from a well-secured vault. Filmmaker Dassin, armed with a script written alongside René Wheeler and Auguste Le Breton, delivers a progressively engrossing piece of work that gets off to a less-than-promising start, admittedly, as Rififi kicks off with an overly languid opening stretch that doesn’t contain a whole lot in terms of compelling, attention-grabbing attributes – with the arms-length vibe compounded by a general lack of sympathetic characters and the inclusion of a few padded-out or downright needless sequences. (This is particularly true of a pointless, patience-testing musical number.) It’s clear, then, that Rififi transforms into an unexpectedly (and impressively) enthralling endeavor once the lengthy, dialogue-free heist rolls around, as the sequence has been infused with a tense, spellbinding feel that proves impossible to resist. And while the immediate aftermath of said heist is perhaps not quite as gripping as one might’ve liked, Rififi closes with a terrific (and almost astonishingly grim) final stretch that ensures the whole thing concludes on an exceedingly positive note – with the end result a first-class picture that lives up to its place as a classic example of the heist genre.

***1/2 out of ****