Fired

Crossfire: A PTSD-afflicted recently discharged American soldier is accused of the murder of a Jewish acquaintance, but naturally the truth turns out to be far less simple. Another application of film-noir techniques and tropes to a subject normally outside its parameters (see last review), with soldiers as its protagonists and mental illness and prejudice as its themes. Contains one truly excellent scene where a soldier and a mysterious man meet at the apartment of a dancing girl, and conduct a beautifully Pinteresque conversation which could stand on its own as a minimalist theatre piece, counterbalanced by one truly dire scene where the detective character has to stand up and explain why anti-Semitism is wrong and hurts everyone. Since the dialogue otherwise is full of clever allusion and subtextual insinuation, I suspect the studio ordered its insertion just to make it clear to the idiots in the audience what the story's about. Worth tracking down anyway.

Movie Count for 2010: 10