Angel Dust

For Inspector Blount (Giraudeau), life is confusing. His wife has left him. Murder investigations reveal that the victims have been sent dead rats. Then he becomes obsessed with an angelic waif (Bastien) with a callous disregard for the truth. With Blount immersed in a whirlpool of hidden pasts and shifting identities, the film resembles the layer-peeling methods of the admittedly superior One Deadly Summer. The elliptical noir plot allows plenty of space for offbeat comedy and generous characterisation, and Blount himself emerges as a sympathetic, if flawed, hero. If the denouement is less than startling, there are more than enough digressions, twists and hints of Catholic symbolism to hold the interest.