Watching the Detectives

“Sometimes love is stranger than fiction.”

In a small independent video store called Gumshoe, Neil (Cillian Murphy) spends his days with the films noir he loves and has never needed more than watching them. Then Violet (Lucy Liu) comes in, a thrill-seeking woman who treats the world like a plot, and his ordinary routine starts to bend toward the movies. Paul Soter, making his first feature as director, plays it as a romantic comedy that keeps its deadpan straight.