Point Blank (film)

:For other uses see Point Blank (disambiguation)

Critical reaction

The film was dismissed as an average action film when first released. Roger Ebert wrote, in his 1967 review of the film, "as suspense thrillers go "Point Blank" is pretty good." Today, the film is considered a neo-noir classic. Reviewer David Thomson praises the film: "Point Blank is a masterpiece... iconographic... urban thriller... a crucial film in the development of cinema's portrait of... organized crime."

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The recent release of the movie on video has again given the movie praise. Slant Magazine reviewer Nick Schager notes in a 2003 review: "What makes Point Blank so extraordinary, however, is not its departures from genre conventions, but Boorman's virtuoso use of such unconventional avant-garde stylistics to saturate the proceedings with a classical noir mood of existential torpor and romanticized fatalism."

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"The film is sometimes credited with kicking off "American neo-noir... a new mood in American cinema for fetishising blood and violence." (Andrew Pulver)

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Remade as Payback in 1999, directed and written by Brian Helgeland, starring Mel Gibson.

Related Topics:
Payback - Brian Helgeland - Mel Gibson

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