SunnyHello Nice effects though.

Spoonatects Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

Comwayon A Disappointing Continuation

Robert Joyner The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

clanciai This is a surprisingly disappointing film for being a hardboiled noir about ruthless gangsters and established corruption. The leading gangster is Robert Ryan, who definitely dwarfs the quiet but pertinacious leading policeman Robert Mitchum, who is more calculating and subtle and therefore wins, while Robert Ryan is carried off guard by his own roughness. Ryan dominates the acting, though. But the one person who makes the film interesting at all is Lizabeth Scott with her suave voice and shifting standing, leaving you wondering where she really is, until she is forced by circumstances to land on one side. There is a great finale at the police station, which doesn't save the film from regular mediocrity. Only Lizabeth Scott makes it a little more than that.

SnoopyStyle The governor's crime commission fears a large criminal syndicate is moving into the city. The criminals are trying to elect Welsh as their own county judge. They recruit local gangster Nick Scanlon (Robert Ryan) but he's uncertain of their all-encompassing political ways. Corrupted officials are pushing the incorruptible police Captain Thomas McQuigg (Robert Mitchum) to the sideline. Then there is the nightclub singer Irene Hayes (Lizabeth Scott).This should be a great hardcore crime noir. It has Mitchum. The story is simple good cop against bad criminals. It falters with the flat uninspired story. It should have started with Mitchum right off the bat. I have nothing against Ryan and his shaving scene is fun. There is nothing that memorable and Mitchum is wasted in the effort. His presence is still powerful enough to drive this crime action movie forward but this is definitely not upper level stuff.

classicsoncall Just a personal preference of mine, but I would like to have seen the roles of Robert Mitchum and Robert Ryan reversed in the story. I think Mitchum makes for a much better bad guy, but when all is said and done, they each pulled off their roles pretty successfully.You know what was kind of interesting? For all the talk of the 'old man' behind the scenes of the national crime syndicate, he never appeared on screen. He was often referred to by that moniker or simply as the 'chief', and his guy Connolly (Don Porter) even entered his office once at the Acme Real Estate Company, but the guy remained a mystery throughout. Sounds like a maguffin to me.As an incorruptible cop, Captain McQuigg (Mitchum) makes it personal with Nick Scanlon (Ryan), the one time city crime boss who finds himself subservient to the dictates and operating style of the old man. You know, I couldn't quite figure out how the old man kept his lieutenants under his thumb without resorting to the violence rout. Sure he had a lot of politicians and cops in his pocket, but every once in a while it would seem some muscle would be required. Still, you can't be a hothead like Scanlon was, or you wind up like Sonny Corleone.The story had me slightly confused at one point, when McQuigg got back to the Seventh Precinct Station right after the hood he was tailing fell off the roof, a desk officer tells him that District Attorney Rogers is waiting for him in his office. By that time, we had already seen the billboard touting D.A. Mortimer Welsh (Ray Collins) for district judge. Then, Nick Scanlon kept the confusion going by continually referencing Welsh as 'Judge', probably figuring it was a foregone conclusion. Or maybe it was just Scanlon's style to choose his words inaccurately, he kept calling Irene Hayes (Lizabeth Scott) a 'tommy', but nobody seemed to react to it. Oh well.The story ends with most of the bad guys getting their due. One knows that taking down Scanlon had to be part of the resolution here, but it was more than fitting that D.A. Welsh and his crony Turk (William Conrad) would be served subpoenas for all the graft and corruption they were involved in. The picture closes with Captain McQuigg's doleful lament about the slow, constant struggle to keep the gears of justice sand free. It's too bad Johnson (William Talman) didn't make it to the end of the picture, I was really looking forward to his explanation on how two dead mugs wound up in his living room.

secondtake The Racket (1951)A stellar cast and gritty photography can't quite lift this movie into the exciting classic it might have been. The basic problem here is the material, the story, which is slow and steady. It involves lots of conversations, all filmed with huge drama, about negotiating new ways of doing things as a national mob organization squeezes out the local mob boss.This is still a good movie, for sure. Robert Ryan plays the local boss getting overshadowed and he ramps it up as usual, beating a few people senseless. Robert Mitchum is given a dull role, not as a cop on the beat but as the chief of a precinct in charge of cops on the beat. And he was once buddies with Ryan, so they have a couple of one-on-ones. Lizabeth Scott is sharp and as good as she gets in her quirky femme fatale manner, but we don't see enough of her. Throw in Ray Collins as a slithering politico (a role he seems to have been born for) and William Conrad as a corrupt cop (with many pounds to gain before his days as t.v.'s Cannon, etc.) and you see how it looks like good stuff.A star behind the scenes is definitely cinematographer George E. Diskant, not a big name in the field but responsible for several terrific film noirs including the flawless "They Live by Night." He is in good form here even though there isn't much action. You only wish the director, John Cromwell, had more guts to let Diskant fly with things. Cromwell is one of those by-the-book directors who gets the job done but doesn't seem to see the opportunities to surprise the viewer. And he was loaded with opportunity here.The story is basically about life as a cop in a big city. That's why half the time (almost literally) we are in the police station. Or a squad car. There is no actual crime at the center of things (lots of crimes go zipping by, for sure). It's not about solving a crime, but about getting the old boss. It's Mitchum vs. Ryan. And Ryan is more fun. Things get fairly complicated, perhaps needlessly, but the overall trend is toward justice, and how it is best served in a corrupt world. Filled with good nuances, but packaged a bit awkwardly by the end.I say this isn't quite a film noir, but of course in the big picture most people would have to call it that. What it lacks (for me) is the loneliness of the lead character, and maybe even the evilness of the femme fatale. Mitchum is part of a big machine, and a sympathetic one (a huge police force). Ryan is just a thug, and a mean one with a small mind. It's pure crime stuff with noir stylizing. Good enough for a great evening--if you stay alert to all the details.