I got the impression Cornered! wanted to be a melding of Clerks and Scream, but all I wanted to do was scream "Get on with it!" and clock out early.

Which gives you the insane privilege to blow people to bits? Cornered is directed by Edward Dmytryk and adapted to screenplay by John Paxton from a story by John Wexley. It stars Dick Powell, Walter Slezak and Micheline Cheirel. Music is by Roy Webb and cinematography by Harry J. Wild. Story is set at the end of World War II and finds Powell as demobbed Canadian flier Laurence Gerard. He returns to France to discover who ordered the killing of a group of French Resistance fighters, one of which was his new bride. Learning from his father-in-law that it was a Vichy collaborator named Marcel Jarnac. Gerard refuses to believe the rumour that Jarnac is dead and sets off on a trail that will lead him to Argentina, from where it soon becomes evident that Fascism is alive and well. From the off Powell's intense miserablist Laurence Gerard sets the tone for Dmytryk's no-nonsense picture. Mood is set at revenge bleak and spills over into a humourless detective picture with huge anti-fascist leanings. As Gerard snakes his way from France to Argentina, via Switzerland, and heavy with a black heart, he encounters a myriad of shifty characters and traverses what would become a roll call of film noir locations. Enter dark streets, alleys and low lighted rooms. Wedge in some murder and grim violence and Cornered clearly isn't a film for those in need of a pick me up!. It's also a twisty n…

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