Criminal

Shot in English, and in grainy high-contrast b/w in the US, this reflective, stylish but heavy-handed blend of muted realism, melodrama and film noir focuses on a gentle businessman who embezzles a fortune to buy his nagging wife her dream house, only to find that she's been cheating on him. As he takes to the road, meeting up with a disenchanted damsel in distress, the film begins to exert a strange, poetic power not unlike that of, say, Detour - but far more tender. Bleak, crude even, but decked out with fine performances and a good use of music ('50s kitsch and John Adams' Shaker Loops).