It’s a well-worn film noir premise — convict released from prison goes off to retrieve buried loot — but uniquely shot and set in a communist nation where outsize financial ambitions are disallowed, concealed, and thwarted. Czech director Miroslav Cikán’s Konec cesty (US: End of the Road) is a very well-crafted if slightly too talkative noir thriller which, for a low-budget film, features some extraordinary exterior nighttime compositions that make use of the Czech hillsides to beautiful, dramatic effect. Having served a twelve-year prison sentence for taking bribes and aiding an escape attempt in his role as a security officer, Josef Lachman (Martin Ruzek) takes a job as a driver on a dam construction site (the film’s showcasing of Czech economic development and growth was most likely requisite propaganda), where he recruits co-worker Rokos (Rudolf Deyl) to help retrieve a stash of British pounds buried in the countryside. Once the fortune’s in his hands, Lachman stores the cash with his daughter Eva (Alena Vránová) and her husband Jindra (Vladimír Ráz) for safekeeping, which adds to his later complications, which include blackmail, murder, and a legacy of fraud by the Nazis. (The film’s ending may remind some viewers of Stanley Kubrick’s 1956 The Killing). Cikán and crew effectively create atmosphere in the highest-tension scenes, using low angles, low-key lights, closeups, and plenty of shadows on the streets of Prague at night.