Gunn blends delicious noir pulp with serious existential reflection... to have characters who are just as scared of the crushing artifice of human existence as they are of the guy in the next room with a tommy gun. It's the reality that we live everyday-- simultaneously navigating our lives in which we're the stars of the drama, and seeking understanding about the unknowable oblivion from which we came. This setting of a black box stage gives us a film-long metaphor for that exploration. As viewers, we get to ride along with criminals in three-piece suits, sit with the boss's wife as she falls for his protege, and watch perfect plans inevitably fall apart... but all this is impinged upon by that background knowing... that knowing that this is false. This is all staged. And as Elston learns of this falsity, he becomes a proxy for the viewer. When does seeing behind the curtain paralyze us, and when does it force us into action?