Hyytiainen is Koisitnen, a security guard ostracized from his workmates and cursed with a reverse Midas touch: everything he comes into contact with goes pear-shaped.

After being laughed out of a bank when attempting to start a rival security company, he meets Mirja (Jarvenhelmi) a platinum blonde fatale who inexplicably takes a liking to him.

But, fortune has not smiled on our Jonah-like hero, and soon it becomes evident that Koisitnen is the fall-guy in crafty robbery. And then his luck really goes south.

Shot through with a dark streak of pessimism, this has the potential to be a neat neo-film noir.

Kaurismaki clearly thinks so, with Hyytiainen, Jarvenhelmi and Koivula doing good caricatures of the resilient, reluctant hero, the deadly female and the conscience free crime kingpin.

But, the detached style seems even more remote here than in Kaurismaki’s other films and closer to the tedium of that arch-minimalist snooze-meister Robert Bresson.

Save for some beautiful orange magic hour photography to contrast with the greys of Koistinen’s job and dingy apartment, Kaurismaki shoots with a stripped-bare, almost student film style.

This spartan approach carries over to the actors, who register little emotion even as the crosses and double crosses pile up.

Lucky then that the director has kept an actor from his previous feature film, The Man without a Past.

Hyytiainen’s weathered face reveals a range of emotion without changing expression, and his magnetism keeps Lights in the Dusk moving.

But, audiences will ultimately be frustrated by his refusal to fight back or recognize the attraction of his only friend, a woman who flips burgers in a van (Heiskanen).

At 78 minutes Kaurismaki does not indulge in misery, but that the only sliver of hope comes in the final few seconds of the film will make most audiences wonder if it was worth the journey.

Rob Daniel