What is this? A criminal comedy, a bizarre noir satire, a domestic family thriller running wild into the office, a parody on noirs of the 40s or just a local triviality at Seattle going to absurd lengths of passions for nothing? A little bit of all that, but it is actually hilariously funny at times, and it does contain all the obligatory fisticuffs, gunfires, chases and criminal investigations for a noir thriller, but with all its formidable exaggerations it's still just a storm in a teacup. Obvious hoodlums break into an office, causes havoc among the files, are interrupted by an alert secretary, there is a wild chase along the corridors, the elevator and the staircase, she manages to put one off with a fire hose, the other scrams and immediately disappears abroad, the first one is eventually caught badly messed up, and it's all about food preservatives, the real motive of the burglary was intended murder, but everything was messed up from beginning to end, as the instigator was nothing but a professional bungler. You will have many hearty laughs at all the complications at different manhunts, but the music is superb - it is the perfect accompaniment to a madman's general mess of things.
