It must disappoint John Boorman to think that in over thirty years as a film-maker he has yet to equal, let alone surpass, this wonderful faux thriller. Its settings are achingly North American, but its sensibilities have all clearly been packed in Boorman’s very European luggage. Point Blank (adapted from Richard Stark’s prosaically titled novel The Hunter) screens like a West Coast Alphaville.

A deserted Alcatraz. Walker (Lee Marvin), a professional criminal, is shot and left for dead by partner Mal Reese (slimy John Vernon) after a successful heist. But Walker is made of sterner stuff and soon resurfaces, motoring through late 60s Los Angeles chasing after the loot with all the finesse of a bulldozer: ‘I want my money.’

Other than that, Point Blank is almost devoid of plot. It’s the thriller stripped-down, like Melville’s Le Samourai, to its very essence; a trick Walter Hill would repeat - with some success - in 1978’s undervalued The Driver. Character and event exist to move Walker forward, the notion of subplot expunged. The film grips us even as Walker’s search passes beyond the mythic and into meaningless absurdity. Even when he finds himself up against a vast criminal organisation (called, inevitably, The Organisation: ‘Profit is the only principle’) Walker’s pitch remains obstinate.

As coldly designed as it is played (the chisel-jawed Marvin was never better), Boorman’s film only occasionally hints at the period in which it was made. Otherwise it’s all direct light, thick noirish shadows and hard concrete: a film whose production design perfectly reflects its themes of urban alienation and brutal machismo. And the end remains as cunningly enigmatic as it always was: that parcel is as inscrutable as the one Turturro is left with in Barton Fink, and Walker’s reaction just as unknowable.

There’s a limp-dick Mel Gibson remake - Payback - coming later this year, but a more redundant film it’s hard to imagine. As this welcome reissue proves, the intervening thirty years have done little to diminish Point Blank’s cold, amoral brilliance.