The Postman Always Rings Twice

This film has all the ingredients of classic noir without actually being a very good movie.

The biggest problem I had with the film was that the characters are an unconvincing blend of naivety and cunning. One minute they're suckered by an old man running a burger bar, the next they're foiling a blackmail plot hatched by corrupt lawmen and wielding guns like they're hardened gangsters.

The ending is equally unconvincing, with the protagonist happily latching onto his death sentence as some kind of salvation that gives him moral certainty in the amoral noir world he's been floundering in. It's as if this is a noir made by people who were anti-noir.

Noir will always involve a clash between innocence and experience but it's not convincingly handled here. It isn't the first noir I'd make that complaint against, either - things like SHadow of a Doubt and Night of the Hunter have a similar unreal atmosphere.

In my opinion the best noir is both believable and hellish; like The Third Man, Double Indemnity, Notorious or Chinatown.