The American Soldier

This early film by Rainer Werner Fassbinder follows Ricky, returning to Munich from Vietnam. He is hired as a contract killer as soon as he arrives and works through the names he is given; why anyone is killed is never explained. The film does not imitate American film noir so much as transcribe it. The hat, the coat, the whisky and the lines are taken directly, but the acting is deliberately lifeless and the scenes generate no real suspense. Fassbinder uses the genre as a manner and leaves it hanging. Postwar Germany's relationship with American culture is the real subject. Ricky is German but an American soldier; his identity is borrowed, and the film builds that as a criticism. Black and white, low budget and short. Who it's for: those who like early Fassbinder and New German Cinema. Who it's not for: viewers coming with genre expectations; the film is deliberately cold, slow and distanced.