A nostalgist's film noir, one more black-and-white postwar thriller, over a half-century tardy in its arrival, for the buff who has run through Crossfire, Cornered, Notorious, The Stranger, Berlin Express, and Captain Carey, U.S.A., among numerous others, and who still has a hunger. Reassuring archaisms, such as the 4:3 aspect ratio for the opening credits (afterwards widened only to 1.66:1, it looks like) or the blatant rear-screen projection behind a stationary moving car, coexist uneasily with latter-day liberties in matters of sex and profanity. Steven Soderbergh, who had dabbled in black-and-white before (most of Kafka, most of his sequence in Eros, but never till now whole hog), knows where to place the low angles and inky shadows, though he doesn't know so well how to maintain pace and flow. George Clooney, who also had had black-and-white experience in his self-directed Good Night, and Good Luck, fits right in, thanks to his "classical" movie-star good looks, scuffed up a bit in repeated beatings; and Cate Blanchett, as a Berlin prostitute with a presumed-dead but intensively sought husband, seems to be able to adapt herself to anything, including the German language with English subtitles. Tobey Maguire, Beau Bridges, Jack Thompson. (2006) — Duncan Shepherd
This movie is not currently in theaters.