Crime
Noah’s Barks pages relating to the crime genre.
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Touch of Evil
Touch of Evil is a gigantic, ruthless bore for the first half, making no effort to have an engaging hook: a murder mystery about a case where the victims or the crime itself don’t actually matter. The main story about a detective jurisdiction dispute lacks fire when Orson Welles’s jabs are minor and ignored by… (read more)
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Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
A Mexploitation of exploitations? It has to be Sam Peckinpah, and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia poster makes both facts obvious. Warren Oates might want to be cool, but he’s an aging, poor bartender who lives in squalor with his prostitute lover. Problems aren’t solved with a bullet and a laugh this time… (read more)
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Dirty Harry
Let’s just forget about The French Connection and reevaluate Dirty Harry instead. What we have here isn’t just a film that broke boundaries in how much of the crime world media was allowed to show, but a blueprint for a taut, tough, crime-thriller for any generation. Instead of dealing with faceless drug deals we get… (read more)
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The Usual Suspects
Just knowing there’s a twist is bad enough. Why can’t people just keep their damn mouths shut? After all, The Usual Suspects is a lesson in such. Thanks to some very impressive editing, the exposition itself feels like the action. Which is good because that’s most of the movie. While the ending is indeed great,… (read more)
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Le Samouraï
With Le Samouraï, Jean-Pierre Melville crafts a minimalist noir where absolute silence is golden, a foil to the heavy use of grey tones that cast dark, foreboding clouds over the slow proceedings. Possibly the most beautiful film of the ’60s, every scene takes place in real-time as if a natural coil is slowly wrapping around… (read more)
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The Bird with the Crystal Plumage
The best thing that can be said about The Bird with the Crystal Plumage is that it’s identifiably “Dario Argento” despite being his debut. The gory murders still affect, his eye for framing and following a shot is already ace, and of course, it’s a murder-thriller. Hitchcockian in the best of ways. However, I find… (read more)
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The Conversation
The Conversation is possibly the best example of Francis Ford Coppola‘s directing talent as it goes for something more subtle that his usual hugely bombastic ambition can’t distract from. There’s such an intense focus and purity on the writing and portrayal of this story that it’s one of the most flawless movies I’ve seen, even… (read more)
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High and Low
I feel slightly guilty about rating High and Low this high, because while its deliberate pacing with separating the thriller (the high) from the investigation (the low) is a novel idea that lends it a lot of personality, it’s hard for me to not be taken a bit too low after the incredible first half.… (read more)
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Léon: The Professional
I weep for Léon: The Professional because the potential really is there. The premise is great, they really nail the sense of style, and characters are strong (even though Gary Oldman is in the wrong movie; it’s often said because it’s true). But at complete random, the writing dips into mainstream, melodramatic, action movie dreck… (read more)
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Drive
Drive is a mostly conventional thriller that does little to elevate the common tropes used in its genre other than inserting some Taxi Driver. The soundtrack is great isolated, but the brightness doesn’t fit the movie tonally at all. Ryan Gosling’s character is wooden but possesses a modicum more depth than the surrounding cast. There… (read more)