This is the way it’s done. Iran doesn’t spring to mind when a conversation turns to noir, but Esmaeil Riyahi’s Jaddeh Marg (US: Highway of Death) packs in so many elements noir fans love — suspense, alienation, escape, revenge, desperation, murder, action, thrills — that it feels like sacrilege that the degraded copies available are virtually unwatchable. Moving the action from a world of urban shadows to the screeching sun of the desert, Riyahi was clearly inspired by Hitchcock, especially in the final act in the mountains involving multiple cliffhangers, literally. After a long day at the factory he owns, Mahmoud (Armais Vartani Hovsepian aka Arman) comes home to a shocking scene: his wife Atefeh (Mina Maleki) and her lover Hooshang (Abdollah Butimar) have murdered his young daughter and are preparing to do the same to Mahmoud. After a seemingly endless struggle and a suicide attempt, both Atefeh and Hooshand end up dead, and Mahmoud, out of fear that he’ll be blamed for all three deaths, is forced to go on the run. Talk about a noir set-up. While the police organize a manhunt, Mahmoud stows away in a truck heading for the countryside, where he proceeds to carjack a married couple and their young daughter Pari (Minu Shafih), bringing us into Ida Lupino’s The Hitch-Hiker (1953) territory. Considering what Mahmoud has experienced in just a few hours, we come to understand his rage and vengefulness and even understand why he kidnaps Pari, who is the same age as his now deceased daughter. Plenty of moments require suspension of disbelief in the viewer, but the film’s action and pacing never let up, suspense elements inserted shrewdly throughout, stakes intensifying with each dramatic highway turn.