Max et les Ferrailleurs

Max et les Ferrailleurs (Max and the Junkmen) is a 1971 Franco–Italian film directed by Claude Sautet. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Claude Néron.
Plot
Born into a wealthy family of French vintners, Max (Michel Piccoli) is a loner who devoted himself entirely to his obsession: the arrest of criminals. A former judge he is a police inspector and he sees a new band of burglars escape. This failure is still fresh in his mind when he meets Abel who has become a scrap thief and plunders construction sites with a small band of hoodlums around Nanterre. Max plans to encourage them to commit something big and catch them on the spot. Posing as a client, he meets Lily (Romy Schneider), a young German-born prostitute who is the companion of Abel. He pretends to be the director of a small bank branch which receives significant amounts of money at regular intervals. He ensures the support of his police commissioner. Max fails however to reveal...