Beginning your crime film with “The Passenger” by Iggy Pop is a marvelous idea and one that excitingly sets the tone for the very clever and labyrinthine noir “La Gomera” (“The Whistlers” in the English version). With his latest film director Corneliu Porumboiu has created a fantastic and riveting pop-culture cops-and-mobsters film that occasionally gives way to philosophical leanings.

Despite its non-chronological narrative and slightly-convoluted plot Corneliu Porumboiu’s new film “La Gomera” is a winner. It’s a film noir with a femme fatale, murders and a morally-questionable hero. “Gomera” references “The Maltese Falcon,” and has one scene that looks like a first take from “Psycho.” Add to this a mattress full of cash, a pious mother and scenes from the Singapore's Garden Rhapsody show and lots of waltzes