Noir, new and old

Caught Up, writer-director Darris Scott's first film, reworks established characters and conflicts with a few fresh twists.

Daryl (Bokeem Woodbine), a young LA ex-con, is serious about turning his life around when he meets Vanessa (Cynda Williams). She claims to be a psychic and gets him hooked up with Billy (Joseph Williams, a hyperactive combination of Christopher Walken and Pee Wee Herman) who owns a semi-shady limo service. What follows is a variation on familiar noir themes - so familiar that many fans will think that they're ahead it. Maybe they are, to a point. Scott and Woodbine make the first person voice-over narration an important part of the story. Scott handles action well and he pays welcome attention to character. On the other hand, some scenes are raw and others, like the long "medieval" moment are derivative. In the end, though, despite the flaws, this is a strong debut with the right ending(s). Scott appears as the TV reporter.

Propaganda and noir do not make for a completely comfortable fit, particularly when the propaganda is as proud and naked as it is Hangmen Also Die! Director Fritz Lang and co-writers Bertolt Brecht and John Wexley so broadly overstate their Nazi villains that these are almost comic characters.

The setting is Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia. After the top dog, Heydrich the Hangman, is assassinated (off screen), the Nazis retaliate brutally with a curfew, hundreds of random arrests and executions until the killer comes forward. That killer is Dr. Svoboda (Brian Donleavy). During his escape, he's spotted by Masha Novotny (Anna Lee). Though she's more interested in her upcoming marriage than in politics, she becomes slightly involved, eventually bringing her father (Walter Brennan) and fiance (Dennis O'Keefe) into the plot.

The main problem is a patient pace. Lang lets events unfold slowly, and they're often interrupted by long, passionate speeches. The most active and energetic character is Gestapo Inspector Gruber (Alexander Granach) with his bowler hat and bristling mustache. Should anyone consider a remake, Bob Hoskins would be a natural for the role, and in many ways, this is a story that could be told better now. Presumably for budgetary reasons, the filmmakers let several key scenes of physical action occur frustratingly off camera. A complex sexual subplot is also given much less attention than it deserves. It revolves around Masha and reflects the larger decisions she has to make. Those decisions compete with other plot elements when they ought to be squarely at the center of the film.

Given another chance, filmmakers might tone down the anti-Nazi rhetoric and heighten the moral problems. In Lang's telling, the two sides of the film are almost in conflict.