UnknownDoomer

Probably one of the best, and at the same time the most laconic, roles of Alain Delon. The atmosphere and style of Paris in the heyday of the 1960s, noisy and not so noisy streets, hurried and not quite residents of the French capital, busy with their daily affairs. The familiar world. A world that is completely alien to the ascetic protagonist and who, in his own way, following a once spontaneously invented quote, lives in the deep shadow of the urban jungle. He is a cold-blooded hired killer with an icy look, who does not ask questions, an «impersonal tool» with a foggy past.

At first glance the story being told does not stand out with anything special and is built around another order received by the protagonist and various subsequent spontaneous twists and turns associated with it. A random witness, an inconclusive interrogation by the police, hesitant customers, situational chases and, as a classic, but in its own way wrapped attribute of the genre - a femme fatale. From different angles, similar, near-detective themes were raised in various films, to which the terms "noir" or «suspense» are usually attached; decades later, it would be developed in the now cult «Leon» (1994) and the art-house «Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai» (1999), which in its own way plays on the «samurai aesthetics». At the same time there is one distinctive component that perhaps no other work has managed to convey to such an extent - abstract principles are multiplied by absolute detachment.

In Besson's film the hero was generally lonely by nature, but on occasion he could exchange a few words and establish some kind of communication. Jarmusch's work played out life's drama and its consequences in a unique way. In Godard's somewhat pretentious «Alphaville» (1965) philosophical questions were raised and Monsieur Kouchen, although a bit strange, was not devoid of emotion and a peculiar sense of humor. Jeff Costello does not fit into this series, nor into any other. For him life, whether his or someone else's, is just an abstract, mechanical sequence of actions, a path from point A to point B, following a planned course of action and instructions, without raising questions like «Where?», «What?» «Why?». This aspect runs through the entire plot like a thin thread.

At the same time no matter how good this or that «mechanism» is one day it can fail, which is essentially what happens - the ace of his specific business begins to make one fatal mistake after another, raising the stakes and, as a result, the police's chances of catching him, but he does not attach any special significance to it. The general detachment gradually moves to the next and now essentially the last iteration - consciously or not the hero begins to strive for an exit. An exit that on a subconscious level becomes for him an identification with the seemingly familiar, but now perceived in a different key, word «death». And now it seems like nothing, including a laconic friend or a canary, which was either a kind of souvenir or one of the few joys of life, or just another allegory.

Everyone, one way or another, will find their own answers and interpretations here, and, in my opinion, it is this component, combined with a minimal amount of action and the prevailing silence in the frame, that allowed this film to become a classic of the genre.

One day the measured everyday life of a girl working as a journalist in one of the publishing houses is interrupted by a strange call. For some obscure reason, she, without any ulterior motive, takes the stranger for her friend, with whom she has a rather contradictory relationship. Starting from this, at first glance, insignificant detail, the further cycle of events begins. At the insistence of the caller she arrives at a nearby bar and becomes a witness to a spontaneous murder. Then there is a generally typical set for any simple thriller - a corrupt policeman, dark streets of an average city somewhere in the USA, a friend who will always give a couple of useful (and not so useful) pieces of advice, indifferent colleagues, as well as a couple of moderately colorful criminal elements. In essence could have finished here, but some components of this picture taken separately allow it to stand out a little against the background of numerous, often completely faceless, brothers in the genre, which especially gained popularity in the second half of the eighties and the following nineties of the twentieth century.

Probably everyone knows the combination of good cop - bad cop. Here is a more unusual layout using the example of the «other side of the barricades». The first figure is the melancholic, taciturn and thoughtful Stephen McHattie, who dyed his hair a slightly acid-blond color. The second is an unbalanced psychopath in a leather jacket, occasionally (and without) waving a switchblade and wearing slicked-back hair, aka Steve Buscemi in one of his early roles, several years before Tarantino's creation, which made him famous to a certain extent. This explosive combination of incompatible opposites needs to find the wayward person at all costs, not without difficulty maneuvering in the discrepancies between plans and approaches to solving this, as it turns out later, not the easiest task.

In addition, as the action progresses, the three main characters mentioned will continue to be accompanied by a mysterious lover of frank conversations, the final alignment with whom will be revealed from an unusual side only closer to the end, as well as, acting as a kind of separate actor, the brick gateways of New York.

As a result it can be noted that watching the twists and turns of all the mentioned elements turns out to be quite interesting, therefore a positive review and a rating relevant to the genre specifics of category "B" thrillers.

Now, essentially an undeservedly forgotten by the general public film with Clint Eastwood based on a true story about the only successful escape of three prisoners from Alcatraz in the early 1960s, which occurred about a year before its actual closure. To this day the story of the escapees subsequent fate is shrouded in darkness, but according to rumors these comrades managed to get to Brazil later.

The plot, at first glance, is not particularly intricate. By force of circumstances, three prisoners, whose background and personalities are colored only by dry facts, such as the fact that they had previously successfully escaped from «simpler» prisons, are transferred to Alcatraz at about the same time. This, at first glance, insignificant detail, the number of prisoners, will later play a serious role in the success of the escape of the entire company.

Unlike the similar in context «The Shawshank Redemption» (1994) and other genre films, which are dramas, in which the key details revolve around the experiences of various characters and the main character separately, here we have a rather atypical, viscous thriller with great attention to small, often purely technical details, all the rest, to a greater or lesser extent, is sent to the background to support the background and atmosphere. The main character turns out to be a frame of a very extraordinary mind, due to which literally from nothing and improvised materials, ranging from extra hair from a hairdresser to two metal parts fused together using a pile of matches, together with his «colleagues» he paves the way to freedom. In the meantime, the escape itself, before moving to the stage of direct embodiment, is diluted with various small, in their own way interesting plot branches, like stories about a prisoner whose only joy is drawing pictures, a local bully and a librarian with a philosophical view of things, who prefers ebony magazine. A separate characteristic detail is that there are no clearly expressed and conditionally positive characters here. Probably, this is how the authors of the film interpreted the postulate that gloomy dungeons make their influence and adjustments.

It makes sense to dwell on one interesting fact separately. Alcatraz was one of the few prisons where there was a hot water supply so that prisoners would not get used to icy water, which, although obviously and to a purely minimal, theoretical extent, could contribute to their further escape across the bay. As a result, this obstacle, in a purely practical sense, becomes one of many challenges, the solution of which the runners will need to approach from a rather non-standard angle, so that they do not suffer the fate of less unlucky inmates.

To sum up, I will note that subjectively I liked this work an order of magnitude more than the sentimental film adaptation of Stephen King's work, which has forever placed in the first position of various ratings. At the same time, this film is often completely absent from various lists, in other words, if you do not search purposefully, for example, studying the filmography of the actor, or if someone does not recommend it, then in essence you will not find it.