City Desk: Urban Sundial

Kingsley gives us the ultimate psychopath in look, speech, and demeanor, the like of which we haven’t seen since Robert Mitchum’s performance in The Night of the Hunter. By injecting a sneering humor into his beastliness, he makes it, perhaps not sexier, but surely more frightening. Opposite him, Ray Winstone’s Gal is his very antithesis: a big, quasi-somnolent hippo, slowly reacting to the tauntings of an unpredictable wolverine, but suggesting that it, too, can throw its weight around when aroused.

Excellent performances, as well, by Ian McShane, whose dapper Teddy, with his slicked-down hair, sharklike smile, and inscrutably intense gaze, is no less chilling than Don; by Amanda Redman, as a comfortably seedy DeeDee capable of mustering unsuspected pluck; by Julianne White as a lively but deflatable Jackie; by Cavan Kendall, as the sweaty-under-the-collar Aitch; and by James Fox as Harry, the perfect upper- class twit. Add versatile cinematography by Ivan Bird and twitchy music by Roque Baños, and you’ve got a complexly unsettling, dazzlingly colorful film noir.

About the Author

Richard Brookhiser

Historian Richard Brookhiser is a senior editor of National Review and a senior fellow at the National Review Institute.

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Kingsley gives us the ultimate psychopath in look, speech, and demeanor, the like of which we haven’t seen since Robert Mitchum’s performance in The Night of the Hunter. By injecting a sneering humor into his beastliness, he makes it, perhaps not sexier, but surely more frightening. Opposite him, Ray Winstone’s Gal is his very antithesis: a big, quasi-somnolent hippo, slowly reacting to the tauntings of an unpredictable wolverine, but suggesting that it, too, can throw its weight around when aroused.

Excellent performances, as well, by Ian McShane, whose dapper Teddy, with his slicked-down hair, sharklike smile, and inscrutably intense gaze, is no less chilling than Don; by Amanda Redman, as a comfortably seedy DeeDee capable of mustering unsuspected pluck; by Julianne White as a lively but deflatable Jackie; by Cavan Kendall, as the sweaty-under-the-collar Aitch; and by James Fox as Harry, the perfect upper- class twit. Add versatile cinematography by Ivan Bird and twitchy music by Roque Baños, and you’ve got a complexly unsettling, dazzlingly colorful film noir.