The Burglars

1971 [FRENCH]

Action / Crime / Drama / Thriller

10
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 54% · 6 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Spilled 54% · 100 ratings
IMDb Rating 6.6/10 10 3389 3.4K

burglar athens, greece gang of thieves dockyard heist police corruption

Plot summary

In Athens a collection of emeralds is successfully stolen by a team of robbers, led by safe-cracker Azad. Things go smoothly until they miss the ship by which they planned their escape; a police chief pursues Azad while he waits for the next ship to set off.

Director

Henri Verneuil Photo
Henri Verneuil

Top cast

Dyan Cannon Photo
Dyan Cannon as Lena Gripp's
Robert Hossein Photo
Robert Hossein as Ralph
Omar Sharif Photo
Omar Sharif as Abel Zacharia
Jean-Paul Belmondo Photo
Jean-Paul Belmondo as Azad
720p.BluRay 1080p.BluRay
1.13 GB
1280*548
French 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
2 hr 5 min
Seeds 2
2.09 GB
1904*816
French 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
2 hr 5 min
Seeds 6

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by centralbeerangi

Good escapist fun

This film is sadly underrated (as is Charles Bronson's "Red Sun") for the fun it provides. Its an old-fashioned adventure story of a corrupt cop (Sharif) in a cat and mouse game with a gang of burglars led by Belmondo with a cache of emeralds as the prize. Its beautifully shot in widescreen and the music by Morricone is awesome. A great car chase is a bonus. What else do you want for 2 hours? Good laconic perf by Belmondo. Sharif as the vicious bent cop is good as well. Dont look for deep characterization; Verneuil's goal is the keep the story moving. The widescreen (2.35) ratio of this film requires a letterbox video treatment. Unluckily for us fans it may be a long wait before we see such a treatment.
Reviewed by moonspinner55 6 / 10

Flirting, fighting, and fender-bending over stolen emeralds...

The first twenty minutes of "The Burglars" concerns a highly complex and detailed home invasion/safe robbery, with four crooks in Greece making off with a million dollars worth of emeralds; unfortunately for them, the chief investigator on the case is playing both sides of the law, and he's onto them from the start. Based on David Goodis' novel "The Burglar", and previously filmed in the U.S. under that title in 1957, this caper has such a meticulously mounted set-up that it's a bit strange to have it change gears almost immediately into a chase-laden cat-and-mouse game (with amusingly derivative elements). Dyan Cannon is used as (very lovely) window-dressing, but the real flirting comes between master thief Jean-Paul Belmondo and crooked cop Omar Sharif (they share a Greek meal together that is so specific, it's hard to believe the intimate tension wasn't unintentional). Some of the action is truly hair-raising, and the film is generally good-natured and well-made, if familiar. **1/2 from ****
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