In Fassbinder's eighth feature, murder is for sale, just as it was in an American film of the fifties like The Enforcer; but in the seventies the business of crime is organized by the state, not the mob. Ricky, hired first by the U.S. to fight in Vietnam, and now by the German police, follows orders-to kill soldiers, kill strangers, kill even his girlfriend. If good and bad exist in Fassbinder's world, they are not simply flipped, with the killer dressed in white; rather, they are relative. So while Ricky's actions are an extension of an amoral society, and are in fact recruited by that society, it is he, as an individual, who is ultimately the victim. Fassbinder's homage to film noir features the familiar cast of Antitheater actors, with two of them playing characters named Walsh and Fuller. Kathy Geritz