This is a very subversive buddy-buddy movie which foregrounds the homoeroticism latent in its structural model, BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID. As much a French Western (thematically and visually) as a gangster movie, it uses predictable absolutes - wide open spaces/cramped interiors; law/criminal; legally 'straight'/sexually 'straight' etc. - to make them (and the genre that feeds on them) ambiguous and critical. Melville is invoked too - in the focus on elaborate heist - and subverted: life, not death, is celebrated. Sadly, if I may say so under IMDb guidelines, the dialogue (in translation anyway) is uninspired, the plot underdeveloped and the action mechanics barely routine.
Review of Les spécialistes
