I Hired a Contract Killer
Dir: Aki Kaurismäki
1990
*****
I Hired a Contract Killer must have taken Kaurismäki well out of his comfort zone ("When I was young, I would sit in the bath and ideas would come to me. But I'm not young any more, so now I just sit in the bath."), what with filming in a different country and in a different language but he excelled, quite typically really, and even goes on to do it again in Russia. It does seem quite apt for I Hired a Contract Killer to be filmed in England though as the humour fits quite well (even though the main character is French, it seems very British to hire a contract killer as means of suicide because you're too clumsy to do it yourself). The rather wonderful and also very British answer from the contract killer; "Why don't you do it yourself and save money".

Filmed in London's Docklands before it was rejuvenated, it's a beautiful no-man's-land noir that is quirky, funny and every bit as good as you'd expect from the great Kaurismäki.