Even though Edward G Robinson ranks among my favorite actors of all time, he wasn't an exception to appearing in less acclaimed movies. I'm not saying this movie is bad, it's just that I never even heard of it before this Wednesday so I wasn't sure the level of quality awaiting me was going to be on par with something like Little Caesar. The movie is fairly average in terms of its story and has a fixture on crime, which I think is a genre of movies that has been done to death already. Because of this, the plot didn't feel very original to me but the film is interesting because it features both Robinson and the king of classic movies himself, Humphrey Bogart. This is I think the second such movie I've seen to feature both actors side by side, the other being Key Largo. Ironically, just like the aformentioned movie, this film has Robinson and Bogart on opposite sides playing the same deadly game, which culminates in a deadly climax at the end, quite literally. This movie is about a detective named Johnny (Robinson) who gets booted from the police force one day, despite being well respected for catching criminals. Speaking of which, a mobster named Al (Barton MacLane) tries to approach Johnny with an offer and form an alliance with him. He wants this because Johnny, being a former cop, knows how the police allocate their resources, and Al wants to find out what they've got so he can counter it. Johnny actually accepts the offer and, just as he made a name for himself by being a good guy, now he does the opposite. Meanwhile, Bugs Fenner (Humphrey Bogart), another criminal, doesn't like what Johnny is doing since he thinks he still works for the cops. After Al's mob starts to lose money, Johnny takes the helm and gets them to indulge in a gambling operation headed by his girlfriend. The money really starts pouring in non-stop, but Johnny has other ideas. Unbeknownst to Al, Johnny actually is still a cop (technically). He's been in touch with Captain McLaren of the police all this time so he can find where the mob's leaders are. The cops attack and pillage many of Al's strongholds and gambling sites. Because of all this misfortune, Bugs becomes disillusioned with the mob's fall from grace and decides it's time to run things his way, except he can't do that until Al is dead. Bugs shoots Al and Johnny meets up with the leaders of the mob, who all happen to own banks. Finally, the cops raid one of Bugs' operations and a scout for Bugs manages to see Johnny involved with it. Bugs and Johnny confront each other in a stairwell and both shoot each other at the same time. Johnny drives to the bank to give the mob bosses the money and then dies. It's not in vain though since now McLaren knows who's running everything. Even though I typically regard every Robinson movie as a masterpiece, I felt this one was lacking compared to many of his others. I don't know what it is, but I just think playing a good guy is out of character for him, so I tend to find the movies in which he plays one mostly just decent. After seeing literally hundreds of crime movies, I realized there's only so much that can be done with storylines like these. That being said, Bogart and Robinson still deliver good performances, and it was nice to see them face off, which I don't think I've seen outside of Key Largo up until now. One last thing: it's worth mentioning the person this movie draws its inspiration from. Johnny Broderick was a cop in the NYPD during the 1920s, 30s, and 40s who had an extremely violent reputation when it came to handling criminals. He took no nonsense from people even when they were holding him at gunpoint, and smashed troublemakers through windows when they were spotted bothering women, just like what Robinson does in this movie. Just the fact that a lot of the violent things Robinson does in this movie are based on the actions of a real person makes it even better.
Review of Bullets or Ballots
