If only the whole thing were as good as its credits sequence: a roving spotlight carving out white crescents on a black screen, picking out retro Forties lettering in a film noir font. It sets a mood; the movie doesn't sustain it. A second collaboration between the star and the director of the overpraised Croupier, Clive Owen and Mike Hodges, it lays out a classic situation -- the retired gangster returning to the fray on the trail of revenge -- albeit with a difficult Brit dialect and a thoroughly modern dose of brutality, plus two episodes of puking and another episode of pretend puking. The manner in which the retiree, living the life of a backwoods hermit, learns of the death of his brother -- a visitation by the latter's ghost -- is either as modern as James Van Praagh or as dated as Shakespeare, but it's not something ever experienced by George Raft. No doubt this is a serious piece of work, even, you may say, a morose one (the protagonist pithily explains himself: "It's grief, for a life wasted"), and no doubt, too, a passable one. Owen's formidable deadpan is not in the least disguised behind a full beard; and a fleshy fresh face named Jamie Foreman is a standout as the clownish courtier to the princely hero; and Malcolm McDowell, the villain of the piece, is accorded a smooth and momentous introduction: turning around to the face the camera from the front passenger seat, in annoyance at his backseat henchman's toying with a rubber ducky. But the suspense, proceeding through some unpersuasive detective work, never builds very high. Which might, on second thought, be a blessing insofar as the flat ending will be less of a letdown. Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Charlotte Rampling. (2004) — Duncan Shepherd