Katz5

Anything with Bob Odenkirk is going to be offbeat and entertaining and his attempt at a scrappier, more efficient version of a John Wick movie is no exception. Despite being a professionally trained killer, his domestic scenes smack of Jimmy McGill/Saul Goodman.

And as the case with John Wick (the first movie, at least) the villains are a never-ending supply of entitled Russian gangsters - first the younger ones he deals with on a public bus (in order to protect a young woman from a likely gang rape by said Russian thugs), and then the head gangster and his soldiers.

Odenkirk's Hutch and his family (including his wife who may or may not be as skilled as he is - the movie leaves that prospect open and perhaps the sequel will expand on that) live a normal humdrum life of a "nobody," as Hutch constantly reminds those around him. A scene with Hutch working at a Cinnabon would have been a nifty inside joke for Better Call Saul fans. But the encounter on the bus thrusts the family into high level danger. An assault on their "ordinary" home is inevitable.

The John Wick films have become overwrought, tedious affairs, at least in my humble opinion, not to mention long (the most recent Wick movie was over 3 hours!) Nobody runs for a lean 93 minutes, and includes arguably more (and better) action than the John Wick sequels. Nobody is definitely a leave-your-brains-at-the-door entertainment, merging elements of not only Wick, but also Liam Neeson's Taken (the idea of such an ordinary type of guy being a highly skilled killer).

There are some surprises in the cast as well. It's nice to see Michael Ironside, a psychotic villain of so many '80s and '90s movies, in a sympathetic role. And Christopher Lloyd, as Hutch's dad--what a treat to see him again. Those who appreciate Odenkirks' rather skewed characterizations will definitely enjoy this one.

Coming out a few years before the more famous Waterfront movie, "The Mob" has a title that may invoke high level "Godfather" or "Goodfellas"-like gangsters to some. But this movie came out 20 years before The Godfather. When "the mob" were really low education, blue color, anti-labor union type thugs who wanted nothing more than to rule...the waterfront, and all of the business involved with unloading cargo ships.

Johnny Damico (Broderick Crawford) is a good cop who screws up one evening while off duty and is sent on an undercover job to seek out the crime boss of the city's waterfront. In order to look genuine, Damico goes to New Orleans for a few weeks and arrives back in his home town on a military boat, his practice as a down-on-his-lucky dock worker immediately paying off. He bullies his way up the ranks of the dock to machine operator and spends his free time at the bar of the flop house he's staying in. It's in the bar where the other essential characters are introduced. Revealing any more of the story would ruin the surprises for the first time viewer.

The cast contains some faces that would become popular in later years: Ernest Borgnine, John Marley (who played the Hollywood hot shot in The Godfather), Richard Kiley, and even an uncredited Charles Bronson (blink and you'll miss him). Crawford made this movie after winning an Oscar a few years earlier for the bigger budget All the King's Men. Crawford agreeing to make this smaller budget crime film curio after winning the big Oscar is a statement about how good he thought the script was. And it does contain some surprises.

The only flaws is that with such a short running time, characters come and go so quickly it's hard to keep track of who they are and how they are relevant to the plot (watching the film a few times will probably solve that dilemma). Also the movie does suffer from an ambiguous location. One would think it's New York or New Jersey but then we see palm trees, indicating it's probably southern California.

Still a good black and white "comfort" watch, shot on location as many Columbia films of the era were.

In 1947, this movie was probably considered quite groundbreaking and gritty. An accurate exploration of prison life not depicted before in a major Hollywood movie. And coming out two years after the end of World War II, certainly with some parallels to Nazism thrown in for good measure.

This was Burt Lancaster's second film - his acting is so assured, it was surprising to read that. That is probably the reason Lancaster became one of the greats of the classic Hollywood era. His character Collins is considered by the warden and the captain to be a rabble rouser, a trouble maker, and someone they view as a bad influence on the other prisoners. And most likely to attempt a prison break.

The main conflict in the film is between Collins, who eventually does plot a breakout with his cell mates, including his best friend on the inside Gallagher, and the sociopathic Captain Munsey, clearly modeled after Himmler or one of Hitler's other notorious Reich members. Munsey yearns for the warden's job and snakes his way to that position near the end of the film, giving him free reign to stop Collins and his cohorts using extreme measures if necessary.

The warden Barnes is a passive aggressive type apparently too cowardly to spend much time amongst the prisoners, but makes frequent announcements and orders via the PA system. Munsey shares none of that passivity. When he learns about a possible breakout involving Collins, Gallagher, and other inmates, he uses his sadistic smarts to catch them in the act.

The scenes inside the prison are effective - you feel the sweat, the sleeplessness, the boxed-in feeling. There are also memorable scenes in the workplaces on the "inside," including the "drain pipe," apparently the worst work assignment and the location of the film's climax.

Munsey is played by Hume Cronyn, who was known before this film as rather comical characters in two Hitchcock films, Shadow of a Doubt and Lifeboat. Later he had an 80s revival with a bit part as Glenn Close's bewildered father in World According to Garp and then later films with the love of his life, Jessica Tandy--Cocoon and Batteries Not Included. Those familiar with his work in the Hitchcock films and the '80s films will be shocked at his character in Brute Force. He is a pure sociopath and one scene involving his torture of another prisoner in the privacy of his office is tough to watch, even for a 1947 film. And once again recalls the interrogations we've read about that the Nazis (and other dictators) committed.

The film apparently had degraded to the point of nearly being unwatchable. Kudos to the German organization that restored it (a bit of irony there...). A memorable '40s crime film.