El Cortez (2006)

Lou Diamond Phillips has starred in numerous low-budget thrillers, but never as an autistic anti-hero, as he does in the twisty El Cortez (2006). After being discharged from a mental institution, Phillips's character works as a clerk in the cheap hotel of the title, where he comes into contact with a hothead cop, a two-bit dope pusher, various scam artists, and femme fatale Tracy Middendorf. True to its film noir roots, El Cortez intercuts its present-day action with a story set in the 1940s, making for a tricky mystery made all the more fun to figure out by Tracy's repeated displays of tush and toplessness.