Point Blank

Angie Dickinson and Lee Marvin

Midway between Philip Marlowe and John Wick, Walker, the hero of 1967’s Point Blank is a stylish hero in a film so stylish and influential that its original impact can now only be guessed at, so relentlessly has it been plundered in the ensuing decades. Soderbergh is a fan, as is Tarantino, and so, of course, is Chad Stahelski (of John Wick fame). Mel Gibson and director Brian Helgeland remade it in 1999 as Payback (go for 2006’s Payback: Straight Up, the dirtier director’s cut, if you’re heading that way) but it’s Boorman’s framing and his use of locations, space and sound that have made Point Blank such a moodboard/sourcebook, as well as … Read more