Rating of
3/4
Expositional but somehow great
sidehacker - wrote on 09/18/07
I've mentioned plenty of times how I tend to not like plot-driven films, whether they're film noir or film noir-esque. This is really the epitome of the latter but somehow I was quite into the whole story. Speaking of which, this is seriously some of the worst writing ever. The plot itself is completely ridiculous and you can tell the writer is trying sooo hard to create conflict. "Oh, looks like I forgot to clean up my murder. I'll just leave go fix that and keep my nice car running right in front of that James Dean like character." - But I think lazy stuff like this really contributed to my overall enjoyment of the film. A majority of the time I was laughing so much at the events taking place that I had to be caught up in them. Malle did genuinely impress me with this film because he does successfully build suspense and atmosphere amidst events that aren't remotely believable. I was a bit reminded of Shadows but that might just be because of the soundtrack and a lot of roaming around the city. Performances were pretty solid too which may have (somehow) made the events seem slightly less over the top.
