"Kiss Me Deadly" (1955)

Kiss Me Deadly is quite unlike any other film noir. Where most noir hint at deadliness and brutality, Kiss Me Deadly hits first and asks questions later. There's a strange, pleasant subversiveness to the film where the film increasingly embraces the inherent implausibility, density, and darkness of its narrative, leading to one of the most bizarre and awesome endings in all of cinema (one that influenced Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction). It's a B-movie but it's fine embracing its low budget, pulpy thrills, which makes it on the surface a little abrasive and rough -- as well as ahead of its time. But though Kiss Me Deadly functions on its own as noir, it's also a commentary on noirs. Everyone gets told they're in over their heads in noirs but few times has it been so totally accurate; the conspiracy in the film is so broad reaching and cynical that it somewhat becomes a critique of the genre. And Ralph Meeker's hard-boiled detective Mike Hammer -- a character who's barely likable or charming -- is so obsessed with the case almost to the point of nihilistic self-destruction that it's simultaneously suggestive of Cold War paranoia as well as the singular obsessions that abound in noirs.

Grade: A