Altman's first film since the grisly Pret-A-Porter could scarcely be more different. It's a dark, humourless gangster parable (certainly not a thriller, as such) that focuses, unusually, on its female characters. The men - the black hood Seldom Seen (Harry Belefonte), stick-up man Johnny (Dermot Mulrony) - are either evil or dumb.

Election Day, 1934. Tough-mouthed Blondie O'Hara (Jennifer Jason Leigh) kidnaps the laudanum-quaffing spouse (Miranda Richardson) of a local Presidential adviser, reasoning that he wields influence enough to force Seen ("seldom seen, often heard") to release Johnny after a bungled hold-up.

Thus are obvious ducks are set up that Altman is then loathe to bring down. Instead, the film's dynamics are dictated by frequent bursts of on-screen jazz (played live, surprisingly), and a sour crawl through Depression America: racism, poverty, teen pregnancy, vote rigging. It's a kind of anti-Miller's Crossing, if you will.

Unfortunately, in an otherwise tightly conceived piece, Altman bizarrely lets Leigh drift into mannerism, and Steve Buscemi's thuggish political organiser to be gunned down far too early. Far better are the uniformly strong supporting players (Brooke Smith is especially good as Blondie's sister), Altman's rich, elaborate tapestry of flashbacks, and Belefonte's star-turn as a silver-tongued hoodlum. Unjustly ignored in the cinema, Kansas City is a bleak but potent brew, deserving of a large and devoted audience on tape.