Just because I’ve placed Nolan’s debut feature last on this list doesn’t mean that I don’t like it.
Just because I’ve placed Nolan’s debut feature last on this list doesn’t mean that I don’t like it. To me, there isn’t a Nolan film — not one — that isn’t totally worth seeing, and his talent, in embryonic form, suffuses every jagged frame of this shoestring, existential, black-and-white London crime noir, which employs a semi-non-chronological storytelling style that’s so casual you don’t even notice it for a while. The actors are superb. Alex Haw, as a posh, high-haired burglar who’s the master of his domain, has so much cutthroat charisma that it’s startling he never went on to screen fame (he’s now a New York architect), and Jeremy Theobald, as the ambulatory voyeur who’s drawn into Haw’s web and becomes his protégé in petty apartment thievery, has such a mercurial presence that, depending on his haircut and beard, he literally seems to shift identities. Lucy Russell, as the femme fatale between them, suggests an indie Marilyn Monroe with her demons exposed. The film is made with captivating skill, but it’s transparently a calling-card exercise, one of those movies where the build-up of mystery is far more satisfying than the resolution of it.