A muddled film that reminds me of Frank Sinatra vehicle "The Detective" released the same year. Both movies augment tough, realistic, location-shot police procedural material with stagy drama from their cops' personal lives, and both attempt to deal with adult sexual issues in a frank & forthright manner. And they both largely miss the mark: the personal drama doesn't integrate well with the action-oriented police-work, and the sexual frankness is awkward and badly dated. That said, this movie does have its pleasures.
Widmark is very good, if a bit too old for the part. He brings an element of volatility to his character, and makes Madigan's seeming contradictions (nasty one minute, compassionate the next) wholly credible.
The supporting cast is uniformly excellent. Watch for the wild, hammy, but engaging bit parts played by Michael Dunn as a shady little person informer, Don Stroud as a petulant, sleazy pimp, and Steve Ihnat as the crazed killer. The scenes with these three characters are some of the sharpest in the film, little set pieces that really bring the proceedings to life.
Fonda's role is a tougher assignment. His character is an intimidating, implacable moral absolutist, a man of few words who processes events internally. In the course of the film he runs into a variety of moral dilemmas, and has to make decisions about them. So how would an actor communicate what's roiling within this character? Beats me, because Fonda didn't do it. He walks through every scene stone-faced, and his decisions seem utterly random. He played this so understated that no statement is made at all.
And the less said about the personal drama love interest scenes the better. Though Inger Stevens and Susan Clark do their best with their thin roles, this stuff kills the pacing of the main story threads. Stevens role as Madigan's wife is there largely to give the story's ending some emotional kick, but it just ain't happening.
The climactic shootout scene at the end is brutal and utterly convincing. Siegel could do compelling action scenes with the best of them. This little bit of the movie is truly great.
So yeah, it's a flawed film, but die-hard fans of crime & police drama, Siegel, and/or Widmark should check this out anyway.
Widmark is very good, if a bit too old for the part. He brings an element of volatility to his character, and makes Madigan's seeming contradictions (nasty one minute, compassionate the next) wholly credible.
The supporting cast is uniformly excellent. Watch for the wild, hammy, but engaging bit parts played by Michael Dunn as a shady little person informer, Don Stroud as a petulant, sleazy pimp, and Steve Ihnat as the crazed killer. The scenes with these three characters are some of the sharpest in the film, little set pieces that really bring the proceedings to life.
Fonda's role is a tougher assignment. His character is an intimidating, implacable moral absolutist, a man of few words who processes events internally. In the course of the film he runs into a variety of moral dilemmas, and has to make decisions about them. So how would an actor communicate what's roiling within this character? Beats me, because Fonda didn't do it. He walks through every scene stone-faced, and his decisions seem utterly random. He played this so understated that no statement is made at all.
And the less said about the personal drama love interest scenes the better. Though Inger Stevens and Susan Clark do their best with their thin roles, this stuff kills the pacing of the main story threads. Stevens role as Madigan's wife is there largely to give the story's ending some emotional kick, but it just ain't happening.
The climactic shootout scene at the end is brutal and utterly convincing. Siegel could do compelling action scenes with the best of them. This little bit of the movie is truly great.
So yeah, it's a flawed film, but die-hard fans of crime & police drama, Siegel, and/or Widmark should check this out anyway.