SO VIBES. Just a killer walking around and fixing his hat and looking all mysterious and grim and taking care of his bird and evading the police with his mastery of the Parisian subway system. The influence is felt decades later with movies like The Killer and The American, but no one does "cool killer" like the French. Melville may have rejected the Nouvelle Vague; but the unabashed tribute to film noir, the almost comedic machine gun repartee, that feeling of a deconstructed crime movie makes it clear that he's closer to the movement than he'd like to think.

Why did that cop have to play around with that drum kit at the very last scene? We'll never really know.