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14

MONDAY

In the post-Tarantino world of painfully predictable heist-gone-wrong flicks, Point Blank, John Boorman’s 1967 adaptation of Donald Westlake’s The Hunter, might seem awfully familiar. Boorman’s American directorial debut stars Lee Marvin as a stone-faced thief who—after being double-crossed and left for dead by his partner during a heist on Alcatraz—returns to Los Angeles two years later to exact revenge. But as the noir antihero emotionlessly shoots his way to the top of L.A.’s criminal underground in search of his stolen money, Boorman’s stylized use of fractured narrative and flashbacks suggests that the character’s “resurrection” and single-minded quest represent more than just the loss of identity in the modern world. As for the symbolism of the scene in which Marvin, clad in a fluffy yellow bathrobe, gingerly applies pancake makeup to his bruised face, well… The film screens at 8 p.m. at the American City Diner & Cinema Cafe, 5532 Connecticut Ave. NW. Free. (202) 244-1949. (Matthew Borlik)