........ what The Third Man does right up to the desolation of it's final shot (for a speechless three minutes Anna walks up to and straight past Martin's expectant loser) is confound convention. We believe we are in a straightforward murder story, but the truth is far trickier and more provocative. The setting is vivid and expansive, yet the film is as claustrophobic and paranoid as any Noir thriller. None of the characters are easy to root for - they're all washed-up, cruelly amoral, rigidly legalistic or ; simply lost to fallen ideals - yet their destinies are compulsive. It is a bleak, hard-nosed crime story that encompasses a ruined continent, sick and cynical from war.
Ian Nathan
Empire Magazine
2011
https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/empire-essay-third-man-review/
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