The lack of humanity in the single-minded Walker is echoed wonderfully by his surroundings вЂ“ even when crowds of people are in shot, thereвЂ™s a detachment to BoormanвЂ™s camera that leaves figures resembling ghosts. A minimally modernised California evokes the same feel. The settings are spare and desolate вЂ“ the opening titles show Alcatraz as a devastated, apocalyptic rock. Point Blank is a tough crime thriller, yes, but itвЂ™s also a weird and unsettling one. A death-dream would also be appropriate for a film so obsessed with memory, one thatвЂ™s structured so oddly, like a frenzied mind firing off in numerous directions at once. It could give a reason for why Point Blank plays out in a high reality, always conscious of its own existence as a movie. This would explain the ghostliness of WalkerвЂ™s world, why he succeeds so capably against such odds, why he can second-guess everyone to his own advantage. HeвЂ™s a stylised mythical spectre of whom his own wife Lynne (Sharon Acker) doesnвЂ™t know his first name, a potentially comical conceit if it werenвЂ™t for one thing: thereвЂ™s a strong possibility Walker dies in the opening minutes of the film, and what follows is his exaggerated revenge fantasy. You fear for WalkerвЂ™s opponents, a cowardly John Vernon among them вЂ“ heвЂ™s the bogeyman in his own film.

In Point Blank, director John Boorman keeps Lee MarvinвЂ™s silent terror Walker in the shadows, right up until the unforgettably haunting last shot.

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