Spione

In its very idiosyncratic way, Spione beats Lang's three Mabuse pictures as his definitive vision of a criminal mastermind. The reason is probably that this film entirely lacks the socio-political overtones of the Mabuse trilogy: the exploits of the evil genius Haghi (Klein-Rogge) here represent criminality almost in the abstract, and plunge the movie into a delirium of disguises, deaths, double-motives, and labyrinthine tricks. The tone is somewhere between true pulp fiction and pure expressionism, and the result remains wholly thrilling.