“Mr. Arkadin” is a strange yet fascinating movie with an intriguing, fast-moving noir mystery plot, complex story structure, exquisite production design, captivating visuals, and a disorienting, uncomfortable atmosphere, not the least caused by the excessive use of Dutch angles. Thematically, the film explores typical Orson Welles obsessions such as truth, deceit, forgery, memory, and double identities. Welles himself delivers a magnetic performance as the enigmatic eponymous Mr. Arkadin but unfortunately, lead actor Robert Arden is very bland and uncharismatic in comparison, so that in his scenes you´re just waiting for Welles to appear again. An even bigger problem for the film is that it feels disjointed and fractured. This can be attributed to the tumultuous production and post-production, which resulted in many recuts and several different final versions of the movie (I couldn´t even tell you which one I´ve seen). That being said, if you can look past the messiness, you see the ambition and vision of a maverick filmmaker who willed his highly original movies into existence against all odds.