Point Blank (2005)

Shot full of bullets and left for dead before the opening credits, ghostly thug Walker (Lee Marvin, armed with a scowl that could overturn dump trucks) is bent on settling the score in this tightly coiled noir. Director John Boorman applies daring avant-garde sensibilities to the gangster genre, splintering the narrative with time lapses, flashbacks, and surreal dream motifs. Watch closely to see that Walker never actually kills anybody — fodder for the implication that he is not real but rather an exterminating spectre shoving his foes toward self-destruction. EXTRAS The vintage trailer and featurettes show the strained effort to sell this art pic as commercial fare. Paired with self-professed Point Blank kleptomaniac Steven Soderbergh for an anecdote-rich commentary, Boorman reveals how friction with studio execs (''They sent for a psychiatrist when they saw these rushes'') was neutralized by Marvin's unquestioning loyalty. He also makes a gentlemanly crack at Mel Gibson's rancid 1999 retread, Payback, and notes the movie's vast influence on other directors: ''This was a scene, incidentally, which has often been copied,'' he understates, to which Soderbergh replies, ''Um, I'm one of the people who copied it.''