Opinion — Nine, Nine, Nine Part One: Top Nine Crime Films

1.Blade Runner — Is it possible for a robot to have a soul? Director Ridley Scott builds a fantastic marriage of noir and science fiction. Just as L.A. Confidential recreates the recent past, Blade Runner creates a believable near future. (Based on a book by Philip K. Dick)

2.No Country for Old Men — Heads or Tails, die now or later. It makes no difference — what you do, evil stalks you and yours. The typical Coen Brothers dark humor rides a desolately thin line as the movie tells us there is no escaping evil or the collateral damage it brings. (Based on a book by Cormac McCarthy).

3. Gosford Park — This is an Agatha Christie on steroids, though, of course it was not based on an Agatha Christie story. Before he created television’s “Downton Abbey,” Julian Fellowes created Gosford Park, a kind of murder-in-the-parlor mystery that tops the sub-genre. Robert Altman directs a sterling cast.

4. Fargo — The Coen Brothers do it again and again. They can make you believe in the absurd. Unlike No Country, Fargo’s dark humor is laugh out-loud. The people are so real and yet what they do is so insane. That’s why we laugh. It’s so true.

5. The Godfather: This is the standard for “mafia” movies. However, it is much more than that. Francis Ford Coppola sets up the relativity and the complexity of right and wrong in a powerful, richly told tale. (Based on a book by Mario Puzo)

6. The Maltese Falcon —What can I say? As a mystery writer, this just might be as good as it gets. Unlike the uneven screenplays based on Raymond Chandler’s classics (with the possible exception of the Bogart version of The Big Sleep) this Hammett private eye tale is perfectly rendered. (Based on a book by Dashiell Hammett)

7. The Talented Mr. Ripley (also Purple Noon) The first is the American version, starring Matt Damon; and the second is the same film done earlier by the French with Alain Delon. Both are perfect portraits of a charming, ingenious sociopath. The films are intricate, fun, and stylish. Cynicism at its best. Timeless. Ripley’s Game, with John Malkovich as Ripley, is also a fine crime film. (Based on books by Patricia Highsmith)

8. L.A. Confidential — You can choose to watch a movie made in the 1950s. Or you can watch a 1950s film from the perspective of the late 1990s. Oddly, the rear-view mirror approach gives us a rich cinematography not available in the fifties. (Based on a book by James Ellroy).

9. Chinatown — Roman Polanski may be one of the most underrated directors. However, this film shows up on nearly everyone’s list. There’s no question about its qualifications. It’s Los Angeles a couple of decades after L.A. Confidential. A lesser-known Polanski film, Frantic, is also well-worth watching.

Film Pairing — Two Different Worlds, We Live in Two Different Worlds

These two films are on my personal “top ten” crime movie list. But they couldn’t be more different. The only thing they have in common is that they incredibly well made — fantastically well written, finely acted and brilliantly directed. Too many fabulous adverbs here. I apologize. Let’s just say that the ultimate noir meets the ultimate cozy. Why not make them a double feature some Friday or Saturday night?

No Country for Old Men (2007), directed by the Coen Brothers, is a desolate, violent, base story of nihilism on celluloid. Good and evil isn’t a result of who you are or what you do, but on the toss of a coin — heads or tails? Based on the novel

by Cormac McCarthy and starring, among others, Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Barden, Josh Brolin and Woody

Harrelson, we find ourselves in West Texas, where a drug deal has gone gruesomely bad and an unclaimed, bloody bag of money makes keeps the grotesque game going.

In Gosford Park (2001), we find ourselves attending a dinner party, where we are privy to the antics of the privileged class and the people who serve them. There is a murder. Directed by Robert Altman and written by Julian Fellowes (he authored Downtown Abbey), this is a story that suggests Agatha Christie, but is better than any films adapted from her books. Gosford Park is rich, stylish, subtle and sophisticated. It is a murder mystery that will be solved. The list of fine actors is too long for a short article. But among the many talents are Alan Bates, Stephen Fry, Helen Mirren, Clive Owen, Ryan Phillippe, Maggie Smith and Kristen Scott Thomas.

Leaving the theater after watching No Country for Old Men I was disoriented (not a totally foreign feeling, some might say). I didn’t feel as if I saw the movie as much as I felt the movie and was still in shock at the meaningless of it all when it was over. Actually, it wasn’t over when it was over, and that was the problem. I could not walk steadily for a few blocks, and I will never forget it. I’ve seen Gosford Park half a dozen times, not to glean new meaning or to gain greater insight into class differences , but to have that sense of satisfaction of having visited a curious time and place, and understanding how that world worked — and finally, pleasantly, having the story all wrapped up in the end. There is peace of mind in having things make sense even if, one concludes, it’s not entirely fair and that it’s probably not the way things are.

I’d watch No Country first while sipping straight tequila. Then, for Gosford Park, I’d switch to brandy, preferably having someone bring it to me as I recovered from the desolation that was and still seems to be West Texas. Having the pieces all put together in the second film might make it easier to sleep.