Word comes from The Playlist via Slashfilm that John Hillcoat (The Road) might be eying a remake of Jean-Pierre Melville’s classic policier Le Cercle Rouge in a report that begins by summing up the route the adaptation has taken to this point.
If the project sounds familiar to you, it’s one that has been knocking around for a little while now. At its earliest stages, way back in 2004, it was set up at Paramount with John Woo attached to direct a script by Jeff Pinker (“Alias,” “Fringe”). Woo is a longtime fan of Melville’s films and even wrote an essay about “Le Cercle Rouge” for the Criterion edition of the film. Obviously, Woo’s film never came to fruition and a few years later, he left the project and Johnnie To (“Election,” “Vengeance,” “Time & Tide”) assumed the director’s seat. This incarnation seemed to gather steam, amassing a cast that one point had Liam Neeson, Chow Yun-Fat, Orlando Bloom, Tim Roth and Alain Delon (who starred in the original) attached or offered roles, with a script by Steve Knight (“Eastern Promises,” “Dirty Pretty Things”) that made last year’s The Brit List of the best unproduced screenplays.
The film’s emotional impact hinging on coincidental causalities and hazy loyalties defies any simple summary, but Production Weekly provides this basic plot synopsis anyway:
…an aristocratic thief who is released from prison the same day a murderer has escaped the custody of a police superintendent. The thief ends up robbing his mob boss and enlisting the help of the murderer and an ex-police sharpshooter for a jewel heist. Meanwhile, the mob boss persuades a nightclub owner and a pimp to help him trap the thieves, while the police officer is also looking to apprehend the convict.
That’s a lot going on, and the trailer is above is packed with action too, but the movie itself is more somber, a languorous meditation on corruption, honor and destiny — making Hillcoat a great choice to direct since tales of grim inescapable fate are a good fit for his morally-conflicted sensibilities.