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Film · 1955 · Crime thriller
Rififi
Directed by Jules Dassin
1955
France
★ 6.5 editorial score
Dassin was blacklisted out of Hollywood and made this in France for almost nothing: the half-hour robbery at its center plays in near-total silence, and the genre has been imitating it since.
“Dassin's inspiration was to expand the safe-cracking job, which is negligible in the book, into a breathless sequence that occupies a fourth of the running time...There is something else unique about the heist scene: It is the centerpiece of the film, not the climax. "Rififi" is more interested in the human element, and plays as a parabola, with the heist at the top before the characters descend to collect their wages of sin. After the heist there is still a kidnapping to go.”
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