BlazeLime Strong and Moving!

Merolliv I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

Bea Swanson This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Bumpy Chip It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

saturno3x1 This is a very good film. It got me thrilled from the very beginning. The story starts when the main witness on a murder trial falls to death accidentally just the night before the trial, and then the District Attorney begins to review all the case over, seeking some other conviction clue against the defendant. From then on, all the movie is made of flashbacks which tell you (not always in chronological order) the whole police investigation that has been carried out to break up that crime organization.The keys: Actually this is not a Bogie's film, for he doesn't play an important part in the action: Most of the time, he just listens to what others do. In fact, this is nobody's film, for the play is quite well distributed between the characters. And the director has been clever enough to give each one of the players quite enough a part to describe his/her character perfectly.The details: There are a lot of details in the action, on which I didn't realize the first 4 or 5 times I saw the movie. But after seeing it a dozen times (believe it or not), I enjoy every one of them. For example, try to understand why Ricco's hand was slipping when Ferguson tried to grab it. Or guess whatever happened to Vince. Or what is the thing "you can carry around in the hat", as Mendoza said. Or just ask yourself why Rico was such a good employer for his employees: paying without having them work, providing lawyers, taking care of their families...The moral: I even try to figure out if there is a moral conclusion laying under the plot. Maybe there is one, if one comes to analyze the murderers characters: All of them seem quite tough when they have a gun, but they break down when feeling threatened (even the impassive and cool Mendoza), revealing themselves as a bunch of cowards. And there is another important fact: In the end, NO ONE GOT TO ESCAPE. Up to eight of them end up violently killed, and the other five regret (or seem to) and agree to collaborate with the police.The goofs: Unfortunately there are plenty of goofs in the action: Olga Kirshen talks too much, same as Angela Vetto; Big Babe hides in the church, as if it were a safe place to hide from murderers; Angela assumes Teresa's personality in a way which is not credible; Rico knocks poor Whitlow's head over the washbasin without Ferguson nor Nelson hearing it, although they are in the room next door; The apparent lack of impeachments for disappearing people in all those years of murders... Still, that doesn't harm the plot that much.Although not quite realistic, the acting (Ted De Corsia at his best), the plot and the direction make a thrilling picture which worths a view... well, more than one view.

derekcreedon Towards the end of 1951 I turned fifteen, just a year away from legal admittance to an X-film. The new certificate, recently introduced, posed an unwelcome obstruction and a moral challenge though I had few problems at my local 'fleapit' where they didn't always question you. Joe Losey's version of M, Cy Endfield's THE SOUND OF FURY and Russell Rouse's THE WELL were stark compelling studies of civil unrest accentuated by the guilty thrill of the 'forbidden' logo. Up the road at the 'de-luxe' however was a different proposition. Amid much larger, grander and more formal surroundings my soul shrank at thoughts of confrontation, of deceptiveness, of "trouble on the door". Sheer funk kept me away from DETECTIVE STORY even with Kirk Douglas in the lead and I let Brando and STREETCAR rattle by unhailed. But then came the crunch, a moment of truth - Humphrey Bogart in MURDER INC. (as it was known over here). What self-respecting film-nut could let that one get away without a struggle. With a grace under pressure Bogie would have endorsed I faced the big guns - the old commissionaire, the manager, the Lord Lieutenant of Glamorgan, the lot. "What school do you go to ? What form are you in ? And you're 16 ??" I felt like one of the Bowery Boys in night-court. All I wanted was to see the Main Man in action, not study for a life of crime. Hang in there, Bogie, don't start without me. They finally let me in though I don't think they believed me and it was worth every bead of sweat. It was a shock to see Bogie with an X pinned to his lapel but what went on was rather alarming...It's an odd item in his chronology, a superior B-picture made apparently to wrap up his Warner contract. Relations with the studio that had made him a star (via some lucky accidents) had long been deteriorating and he was already making films for his own company through a deal with Columbia. As the Assistant D.A. doggedly trying to nail a reptilian crime-boss he was not so much the star here as the host, presiding over a series of flashback sequences before taking over command of the climax. He has no romantic interest (all the women in the film are small-part victims) and no 'personal' story is allowed for. His chief sidekick is a burly Police Captain (Roy Roberts), in effect a precursor of all the TV cop-shows waiting in the wings. The Bogart-link reminds us of his Thirties thrillers but there are no flashy nightclubs here, no wise-cracking molls, no cocky chipmunks fighting for territory. The hoods are murky and nervous in an atmosphere of dread akin to a horror-film which suffuses the whole piece. (It certainly felt like an X at the time). A slickly-wrought compression based on real events it introduced the business of "contract-killing" to the screen and never loses its grip. As others have noted it employs a CITIZEN KANE device - the hunt for a vital clue embedded in the past which may hopefully bring about closure and its nicely apt that Everett Sloane (as Mr. Big) appears in both films.The more extreme violence is always off-screen, no bad thing, but we do get a splendidly-prepared shoot-out at the end when the D.A. rescues his crucial witness (marvellously etched by Pat Joiner) from a stalking hit-man. Real-life D.As probably don't do that sort of thing but this is Bogie going gat-for-gat against Bob Steele, his old adversary from THE BIG SLEEP. It works perfectly and whatever the studio politics that led to it it's a smashing send-off.

Spikeopath Finally after lots of hard work, Assistant D.A. Martin Ferguson has a good case against Murder Inc big wig, Albert Mendoza. But while Mendoza is in jail, the man lined up to testify against him loses his nerve and falls to his death, thus leaving Ferguson little to no time to rebuild a case against the crime lord.The Enforcer is based upon the whistle blowing of one Abe Reles. Who opened eyes up to an organised crime mob called Murder Inc. Fusing that period of history with the subsequent Kefauver Committee investigations that followed Reles' reveals, The Enforcer is a tough and gritty picture that many view as the key switch from Noir into the grizzled crime obsessed 1950s. At the time of writing this I have yet to have it confirmed, but it's thought that this Bretaigne Windust directed picture is the first mainstream picture to deal with the complexities of organised crime? Certainly the dialogue is now common speak (courtesy of Martin Rackin (Riffraff 1947), but back in 1951 it surely would have raised eyebrows and intrigued the watching public.Excellently photographed in stark black and white by Robert Burks, who of course is well known to Hitchcock devotees, the picture positively seeps with an underworld vibe, perhaps even coming into the realms of being documentary in structure. Starring Humphrey Bogart (Ferguson), Everett Sloane (Mendoza) and the excellent, and wonderfully named, Zero Mostel (Big Babe Lazich), it's also thought that Raoul Walsh had quite a hand in the final product. This to my knowledge, is still unconfirmed, but when viewing the picture as a whole, it certainly boasts the feel of Walsh's better known pictures. Highly engrossing and a template movie of sorts, The Enforcer is definitely one to catch if at all possible. 7.5/10

Juha Hämäläinen In this tight and well made crime drama Bogart plays a district attorney with the same grip and conviction as he did earlier in numerous roles at the wrong side of the law. He duly demonstrates his usual witty tough guy image, but there is also much grace and warmth brought with age in his performance. This guy does not fool around. Everybody get just what their deserve and the job gets done, no matter what it takes. What makes these roles of Bogart so compelling is the way they project a certain strong image of the man without having to use much physical power over other people. Here he becomes once again an embodiment of a thinking man's tough guy. Notice in the final scene how he gives his orders and announcements from a music store, surrounded by saxophones, guitars and other instruments. It symbolically but clearly points to the ways he is capable of playing with people and circumstances and conduct the whole case towards the solution.There is no monkey business in the movie either. The crime is presented as a well organized and business-likely lead incorporation for paid murders with even own undertakers on the gang's payroll. It's like a Dick Tracy story made as realistically as possible. An interesting group of criminals is created by a great cast, a pack of believable personalities. The plot moves swiftly through the showing of clear methods of the law enforcement with parts of the case getting unraveled by several flashbacks during the interrogations.The style of photography successfully blends together almost documentary-like sharpness and traditional film noir aspects of heavy contrast and shadows. The darkness seems to hang above and around the criminals as well as the law men, the business being mutual in spite of the opposite sides. Moody and hard-boiled as ever the movie has no humor or romance and it generally avoids using the most obvious clichés of the classic crime movie genre.