As if he didn't have enough trouble already with his boss and his landlady and his ex-wife, a quasi-underground cartoonist in present-day L.A. is menaced out of the blue by a stranger in shades: "Where is it, Mr. Drood?" Where's what? "He gave you something." He who? But this isn't New Wave Kafka. It's a son-of-DIVA mystery thriller wherein it matters more to look well than think well. And honestly the photography is magnificent, in the manner of the hippest sort of greeting-card line. Making sense of the story, though, is something altogether else. Resnaisian flash-cuts take the place of ratiocination, and it's left to the viewer to fill in the gaps. And the hero is much more concerned to get out of the movie alive than to see to it that the guilty are exposed. Nice for him but not for the rest of us. With Tom Hulce, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Harry Dean Stanton, Adam Ant, and Virginia Madsen; directed by Wayne Wang. (1987) — Duncan Shepherd