Double Indemnity

Another movie from class. Double Indemity is a straight-up noir about an insurance salesman who gets involved with a murderous woman, and it's a perfect encapsulation of the genre. Darkly lit and stylistically filmed, it's entertaining to look at and listen to. The solid cast properly delivers the dialog, which is filled with a good blend of cleverness, humor, and noir's often silly over-seriousness and attempts at poetry. The plot seems slightly unbelievable as it gets going, but it recovers when later events shed new light on what happened. It's really interesting to watch them build up the plan and then pick it apart with a scalpel later on, really smart writing.

Double Indemnity excels at building up tension. The murder is only the first part of the story, the criminals have to deal with the aftermath and try to make it without getting caught. It's actually more interesting than the crime itself, watching the protagonist slowly get more and more desperate as he tries to escape his mistakes. It's a very interesting character, he's done something very wrong, but he's still sympathetic in a way. The female lead is also interesting, as you learn more about her past and get more and more suspicious. The actual good guy isn't the lead, and it's cool to see the story from a different perspective. Wilder really knew what he was doing with the cast and script. A great movie and example of the genre.