The famous, final sequence of Jules Dassin’s Du rififi chez les hommes (US: Rififi) follows a mortally wounded thief speeding his convertible chaotically from a remote country home into the heart of Paris, edifices and arches whizzing past as the orchestral music swells, a small boy in the backseat excitedly calling out to the sights and pointing his toy gun at the back of the dying thief’s head, the convertible skidding to its destination just in time for the driver to take his last breath. It’s an extraordinary climax to an extraordinary film, the frenetic, overstimulating drive nearly antithetical to the meticulousness, silence, and slow pace of the earlier extended heist scene at the center of the plot. This conflict between deliberation and desperation seems to be the essence of Dassin’s film, our well-organized band of thieves (Jean Servais, Jules Dassin, Carl Möhner, Robert Manuel) having precisely planned and successfully pulled off an elaborate heist of a jewelry store safe via an upstairs apartment. (The nearly 30-minute heist scene is unique for its total lack of dialogue until they sing for joy at their success.) What the gang didn’t know is that the ex-girlfriend (Marie Sabouret) of one in the group has leaked information about the heist to her gangster boyfriend (Marcel Lupovici), who rallies his thuggish brothers (Robert Hossein, Pierre Grasset) to find and steal the ill-gotten gains. It’s a brilliantly-paced, thrilling film that imbues cold criminality with the pathos of each man’s personal circumstances, especially in the form of little Tonio, who is the son of one thief and godson of another. Dassin, who also gives an excellent performance as “le Milanais,” foregrounds action and suspense for the duration but lets the script explore the personal causes — some mundane, some systemic — of their criminality too.