Wenders uses densely detailed imagery, his pacing is weighted, and there are no insights that relate to the characters -- the film drags along on secondhand alienation.

... only a filmmaker as humane as [director Wim Wenders] could recognize there's no way out of the story's moral corruption.

An absorbing but rarefied, introspective variation on traditional thrilleer motifs, it's probably not the synthetis between the personal and traditional that Wenders needs but it's a fascinating compulsively watchable experiment.

... as introspective and psychologically tangled as thrillers come, and all the more compelling for it.