After The Case

Many of the greatest crime procedurals in cinema offer more than a teasing and tantalizing whodunit plot—by following their protagonist or protagonists as they in turn follow the trail of clues, these films can show us an entire cross-section of society, be that Japan in the 1990s (Kaizo Hayashi’s newly restored Maiku Hama Trilogy), Los Angeles in the Deco 1930s (Chinatown) or the Jet Age ’50s (Kiss Me Deadly), or San Francisco and environs over the course of 15 transformative years (Zodiac). The gumshoes and police dicks who populate After the Case may or may not locate their smoking guns, but even when they do, this is accompanied by none of the satisfaction of relief or resolution associated with the drawing room mystery, only the uneasy conviction that, even with one killer behind bars, something still more sinister remains at large.