Despite being based on The Jugger, the thick piece of pulp written by the late, great Donald E. Westlake under his Richard Stark pseudonym, Jean-Luc Godard's Made in U.S.A. is more of a whatsit than a whodunit. "Now fiction overtakes reality," says Paula Nelson (Anna Karina, in the middle of a divorce from her director) shortly after she "kills" a little man named Mr. Typhus and, as one would expect from Monsieur Godard, nothing around resembles much of either fiction or reality for the ensuing 90 minutes.

It's been 43 years since Made in U.S.A. was originally screened at the New York Film Festival in the fall of 1966 and only now is it seeing a proper release on DVD. Its title, a cheeky irony seeing as it's rarely been seen stateside, is a lackadaisical nod to the noirs and policiers that Godard revered. The film itself is dedicated to "Nick and Sam": Nicholas Ray and Sam Fuller, two of Godard's cinematic progenitors.

The most mythical of Godard's '60s pop objects, the film has a pre-ordained disinterest in the linear nature of its source material. Westlake's construction is skeletal at best. Avid deconstructionist and adorer of the nonsensical, Godard may have dreamt-up Made in U.S.A. as a preamble to his dazzlingly jagged masterpiece Two or Three Things I Know About Her, which was released later that same year. La Chinoise would seem an epilogue to this period of his work -- just as exciting and unpredictable but a bit more sober in its anarchy.

Searching for her missing fiancé, Paula runs around Atlantic City (relocated to France for the duration of the film), chased by all manner of crooks including two goofy cons played by Jean-Pierre Léaud and László Szabó. In another offering of filial exaltation, Léaud's character is named Donald Siegel. One of the more repetitive deconstructionist elements is a sound effect -- a plane landing -- masking the last name of Paula's dead fiancée.

There are guns and there is a girl, as were Godard's prerequisites, but there is also that acapella flourish of "As Tears Go By" sung by Marianne Faithfull at a bar. Thoroughly uninterested in psychological trajectory, emotional continuity or, obviously, the long-standing codes of narrative filmmaking, Made in U.S.A. is a Technicolor smart bomb filled with splintered pop references and random bursts of politics. Put it simpler: It's a Disney film starring Humphrey Bogart.

As fascinating and remarkably invigorating as it is, Made in U.S.A. is not a masterpiece. Part of Godard's prominent mid-'60s cluster, where the filmmaker produced three films a year, this particular film remains the runt of the litter. That shouldn't be taken as detriment, seeing as this period also produced Pierrot le Fou, Band of Outsiders, Weekend, and the aforementioned Two or Three Things. The fresh bombast of U.S.A.'s abnormal groove may not measure up to the other elaborate, beautiful contraptions that were made in Godard's peak years, but it makes many current films look stagnant, if not outright dated.

The DVD includes interviews with two of the stars and a pair of video essays on Godard and the film.