it's incredible. Put the kids to bed early, buy the video and sit back to watch a movie that still shocks and dazzles. The more time I spend with this film - and I've watched it close to a dozen times by now - the more humbled I am by the unflinching bleakness of its vision. Viewers who insist on approaching it as a Hollywood "action" movie will never be able to get past the deliberate, taunting belligerence of the title and plot. Before they will be able to discern it as the masterpiece heralded by Roger Ebert, the Amazon editorial reviewer, and myself, they will need to understand it as an "Under the Volcano"-ish dark-night-of-the-soul cri de coeur - an alcoholic suicide note found in a sleazy motel bed. One of the movie's boldest achievements is its shattering of the lingering glamour attached to the concept of the filmic "anti-hero". Humphrey Bogart's Sam Spade may be unsentimental about the death of his partner and thoughtlessly exploitative of his devoted secretary, but he's still an irresistably attractive figure. He's savvy and fearless... he's Humphrey Bogart, for God's sake! Bennie (a fearless, appalling performance by the under-appreciated Warren Oates) on the other hand is simply, as one of the really-bad guys insultingly brands him, "a loser" - a seedy piano player in a cheap suit cynically going through the motions for bored tourists and dead-eyed prostitutes in a dingy Mexican bar. [No wonder he wears his huge, pitch-black sunglasses even indoors.