The Kid Detective (2020)

Tone is such a tricky thing to get it right, particularly when you are juggling tones while blurring genres. The Kid Detective (2020) begins with a goofy premise – a kid detective (like Encyclopaedia Brown) who solved neighbourhood crimes, now a washed up adult still solving “cases” – and eventually becomes one of my favourite […]

Mona Lisa (1986)

Bob Hoskins searching for a mystery woman through peep shows and seedy clubs to the sounds of Genesis’ ‘In Too Deep’ is such an iconic 1980s neo-noir moment. Mona Lisa (1986) is directed by Neil Jordan and earned accolades and awards for Hoskins’ performance as George, a small time crook released from prison after a […]

The Big Heat (1953)

I don’t know my film history but is The Big Heat (1953) the first movie where a cop is asked to hand in their badge and gun? Before they embark on a personal quest for revenge against an unjust system? It certainly feels like it. All I knew about The Big Heat was the infamous […]

Johnny Handsome (1989)

I’m a fan of Walter Hill and was in the mood for one of his neo-noir action thrillers. I once had an ex-rental VHS copy of Johnny Handsome (1989) that was my first viewing long ago and my memory was that it was a three star movie – good but maybe not essential. I found […]

The Stranger (1946)

The Orson Welles film, The Stranger (1946), which he directed and starred in, has always been around. Without a copyright holder, it’s long been in the public domain, and has shown up on public access TV, cheap DVDs, different streaming sites, and uploaded on YouTube. Held up as a classic film noir, the first that […]