John Boorman’s Point Blank: Criterion Collection Review

I am genuinely excited about the Criterion Collection release of John Boorman’s Point Blank, a groundbreaking crime film that redefined the traditional gangster drama. Released in 1967, Point Blank pushes the boundaries of the revenge thriller, transforming a hard-edged pulp story into a fractured, hypnotic psychological puzzle. In the film, violence collides with existential dread as Boorman strips the crime genre down to its core and rebuilds it as a stylized, almost abstract meditation on identity, memory, and mortality.

Lee Marvin delivers one of the most iconic and enigmatic performances of his career as Walker, a man betrayed by his closest friend during a heist and left for dead on the cold concrete of Alcatraz. From that moment, Walker moves through the story like a ghost with a single-minded purpose, driven by relentless vengeance and a demand for what he believes is owed to him. Angie Dickinson is electrifying as Chris, a jaded former lover whose decision to help Walker is shaped by regret, survival, and her own complex motivations. Their connection adds an emotional undercurrent to the film’s otherwise icy surface, grounding its abstraction in human feeling.

Boorman’s vision of Los Angeles is central to the film’s power. He captures familiar city locations through a surreal, pop-art lens, transforming sunlit freeways, modernist architecture, and sterile corporate interiors into spaces of alienation and menace. Beneath the city’s bright surfaces, Point Blank reveals a profound sense of existential unease. The urban landscape becomes a labyrinth that Walker cannot escape, emphasizing the feeling that he is trapped within a reality that may already be slipping away.

When I first watched Point Blank, I noticed its thematic and structural parallels with Ambrose Bierce’s classic short story An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. Despite being separated by nearly eighty years and existing in different media, both works exemplify the “dying dream” narrative, in which a man facing imminent death experiences a vivid, extended fantasy of escape, resistance, or revenge in his final moments.

This dream structure is particularly effective in the 1961 French short film adaptation of Bierce’s story, directed by Robert Enrico. Enrico fully embraces the subjective, dreamlike experience of the condemned protagonist, stretching a single fatal moment into an imagined escape using precise editing, visual rhythm, and evocative sound design. The result is a film suspended between reality and illusion, reflecting the psychological space Bierce created in the short story.

In Bierce’s original story, Peyton Farquhar imagines an elaborate escape from execution during the Civil War, only for the narrative to reveal that the entire experience occurs in the instant before his death. Similarly, in Point Blank, many viewers and critics have suggested that the entire film may represent Walker’s hallucination or dying dream after he is shot in the opening sequence. Boorman never confirms this, but the fractured structure and hypnotic tone encourage such interpretations.

Both works blur the line between reality and illusion, compelling audiences to question what is happening versus what exists only in the protagonist’s mind. This ambiguity creates a deep sense of disorientation, reflecting the characters’ psychological states and highlighting the fragility of life and consciousness. At their core, both narratives explore the mind’s final attempt to impose meaning, justice, or agency in the face of death.

Time is also experienced subjectively in both works. In An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, Farquhar’s final moments stretch into what feels like hours of movement, reflection, and escape. In Point Blank, time is fragmented and non-linear. Scenes loop, memories intrude unexpectedly, and narrative progression feels jolted rather than smooth. This temporal distortion reinforces the sensation of inhabiting a fractured consciousness rather than observing objective reality.

Isolation is another key parallel. Walker and Farquhar are solitary figures navigating hostile systems that dwarf them. Farquhar faces the machinery of war and execution, while Walker confronts the faceless Organization, a criminal labyrinth that constantly deflects responsibility and denies closure. Both characters move through a maze of obsession and alienation, stripped of meaningful human connection.

Both works also employ an unreliable perspective. Presented in third person, the narratives remain tightly bound to the protagonist’s subjective experience. Crucial truths are withheld until the conclusion, compelling audiences to inhabit a reality that feels coherent yet ultimately illusory. This alignment between viewer and character amplifies the emotional impact of the final revelation.

The differences between the works are equally significant. Bierce’s story is firmly rooted in the Civil War and functions as a tightly constructed narrative twist, with minimal character development because the surprise is the point. Point Blank, by contrast, deeply invests in Walker’s inner life. Boorman examines memory, identity, and emotional detachment, portraying Walker as a potentially damaged veteran struggling to reclaim his humanity in a world that has become abstract, transactional, and morally opaque.

The endings further distinguish the works. An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge leaves no doubt: Farquhar dies, and the illusion collapses with tragic finality. Point Blank, however, remains deliberately ambiguous. Boorman famously insisted the film is “what you see,” allowing viewers to decide whether Walker survives or perishes, or whether the distinction even matters.

Together, Point Blank can be seen as a cinematic, neo-noir reinterpretation of the “dying dream” trope that made Bierce’s story a cornerstone of literary suspense. Through radical style, fragmented narrative structure, and haunting ambiguity, John Boorman elevates a conventional crime story into a philosophical and existential exploration of identity, mortality, and perception, creating a film that continues to captivate and challenge audiences more than fifty years after its release.

DIRECTOR-APPROVED 4K UHD + BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

• New 4K digital restoration, supervised and approved by director John Boorman, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
• One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
• Audio commentary featuring Boorman and filmmaker Steven Soderbergh
• Interview with Boorman conducted by author Geoff Dyer
• New interview with critic Mark Harris
• New reflections on the film by filmmaker Jim Jarmusch
• New program on the midcentury Los Angeles architecture featured in the film, with historian Alison Martino
• The Rock (1967), a short documentary on Alcatraz and the making of the film
• Interview with Marvin from a 1970 episode of The Dick Cavett Show
• Trailer
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• PLUS: An essay by Dyer
  
  New cover by Jay Shaw