I don't know if it happens to anyone else, but I have a number of movies which are not among my favourites, which I notice the flaws quite a lot, and which I am obsessed with because still they get to places a few others do (if you want to ask, Winterschläfer is another good example, but the thing with these movies is that they rotate during some weeks in my head and then they step back to reappear after some years - later I add some other weird noirs).
This one is the second adaptation of a Don Tracy book which is a very solid example of pulpy noir at its peak, a twisty moral tale about people in the margins that I enjoyed a lot, and after a really good adaptation of Robert Siodmak that took some welcome liberties from the book.
What is fascinating about this one is how it follows the book but focusing first on the drama that set up the story for the book. It takes its time through sporadic flashbacks to tell you why the main character is where he is, and it takes its time to get through the more typical noir elements. Does it need that slow pace? Dunno. Does it need those crazy Tony Scott colour filters? Maybe not. But Soderbergh goes hard with the style, really hard, playing at the same time with the depressing realistic drama of people that cannot get out of their social status and the super stylised neo noir (or how it is called nowadays, "neon noir"). It is very much the same beast as some 70s and 80s oddballs like "Stormy Monday" or "Trouble in Mind", takes on the noir narrative that are too much their own thing and do not want to chose between looks, characters or story, sometimes just leaving the characters and letting them do what they were supposed to do in the story. It creates places, real places, and makes you look into the darkness of the main character, and then plants some twists. Cliff Martinez delivers a loopy soundtrack with some nods to Basic Instinct, Peter Ghallager is at the top of his hotness, but it is Soderbergh the one commanding this.
This one is the second adaptation of a Don Tracy book which is a very solid example of pulpy noir at its peak, a twisty moral tale about people in the margins that I enjoyed a lot, and after a really good adaptation of Robert Siodmak that took some welcome liberties from the book.
What is fascinating about this one is how it follows the book but focusing first on the drama that set up the story for the book. It takes its time through sporadic flashbacks to tell you why the main character is where he is, and it takes its time to get through the more typical noir elements. Does it need that slow pace? Dunno. Does it need those crazy Tony Scott colour filters? Maybe not. But Soderbergh goes hard with the style, really hard, playing at the same time with the depressing realistic drama of people that cannot get out of their social status and the super stylised neo noir (or how it is called nowadays, "neon noir"). It is very much the same beast as some 70s and 80s oddballs like "Stormy Monday" or "Trouble in Mind", takes on the noir narrative that are too much their own thing and do not want to chose between looks, characters or story, sometimes just leaving the characters and letting them do what they were supposed to do in the story. It creates places, real places, and makes you look into the darkness of the main character, and then plants some twists. Cliff Martinez delivers a loopy soundtrack with some nods to Basic Instinct, Peter Ghallager is at the top of his hotness, but it is Soderbergh the one commanding this.