There is the unmistakeable influence of underrated French film-maker Jean-Pierre Melville on Jim Jarmusch's off-beat indie, Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, writes David Parkinson.

It's 20 years since Jarmusch made his directorial debut, with Permanent Vacation, a little-seen comedy, which he began making while assisting Wim Wenders on Lightning over Water, his fond tribute to Hollywood outsider Nicholas Ray. Confirming his potential with Stranger Than Paradise, which won the Camera d'Or for Best Newcomer at Cannes, Jarmusch achieved cult status with Down By Law, Mystery Train and Night on Earth. But, following a Palme d'Or victory at Cannes for his short Somewhere in California, he was judged to have missed his step with Dead Man, a quirky monochrome Western that rightly intrigued some critics, but disappointed many more. So, curiously, Ghost Dog is being seen in some quarters as Jarmusch's comeback movie. Reworking Melville's Le Samourai, Jarmusch displays the singularity that so influenced the likes of Finnish maverick, Aki Kaurismaki, as he creates a world of such deadpan solemnity that humour often exists solely in the eye of the beholder. Perfectly at home here is Forest Whitaker's bushido-obsessed hitman, who communicates with his boss by pigeon and with Isaach de Bankole, his ice-cream-selling best friend, by mysterious unexplained forces, as the pair have no common language.

Laconic doesn't do justice to the film's tempo, as Whitaker reads passages from the samurai code book, the Hagakure, performs his exercise rituals and chats to the little girl he has befriended in the park. But, eventually, something resembling a traditional plot kicks in, as Whitaker is hired by gangster John Tormey to rub out the small-timer who is having an affair with the niece of temperamental godfather, Henry Silva. However, the hit proves messy and Silva orders Tormey and his sidekick, Cliff Gorman, to eliminate Ghost Dog before he can be implicated in the crime. Aware throughout that his principles could prove his undoing, Whitaker gives a splendid performance of misguided nobility, while the supporting cast plays its mafiosi caricatures to perfection. Jarmusch intended to become a Beat poet, before he was inspired to become a film-maker by a fateful visit to the Cinmathque Franaise, and that underground lyricism still permeates his work.

Although diegetically valid, in many ways, it's a shame that he has to pepper the action here with explosive outbursts of violence, as they fatally disturb the deliciously absurdist ambience.