Beanbioca As Good As It Gets

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Casey Duggan It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Kinley This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

dougdoepke A richly provocative movie that could serve as a bible of film making, "Force of Evil" succeeds on a number of planes , establishing itself not only as classic noir, but as a reflection of its period. Visually, the compositions are exciting, from the elegant decor gilding the halls of power to the closeup of horror that punctuates Bower's brutal murder, the rich complexity seldom falters. There are echoes here of Eisenstein, and one can't help noticing the presence of Robert Aldrich as Assistant Director, an apprenticeship that would payoff in the visually similar "Kiss Me Deadly", suggesting that Aldrich served for a time as trustee of the blacklisted Polonsky estate. The script occasionally rises to the level of poetic Blank Verse, and is expertly intoned by John Garfield, Beatrice Pearson, and Thomas Gomez in a sweatily memorable performance.Thematically, Marxist Polonsky and co-scripter Ira Wolfert take a shot at the Darwinist world of capital, where big fish survive by eating smaller fish or by muscling in on the catch (Ficco's strategy), while working class minnows offer up dimes and quarters in hopes of instant metamorphosis. It's an ugly world where corruption and greed reach from top to bottom. Since the Production Code of the time couldn't leave matters in an unregenerate state, an upbeat ending is tacked on that defies the logic of what has gone before. Nevertheless, the sharply-etched images remain, vividly - memorably. And it's ironic that any intended remake will have to consider that the biggest fish of all has taken over the numbers racket and renamed it - the State Lottery. I wonder if Polonsky was amused.

Dalbert Pringle For starters, I found Force Of Evil (that's FOE, for short) to be something of a novelty, in that (being a story about racketeering/gangsterism. circa 1949), it contained almost no violence to speak of. Yep. That was certainly an unexpected and unusual twist to this particular tale.FOE starred one of my favourite actors of that era, John Garfield, who convincingly played Joe Morse, the ambitious and very greedy Wall Street lawyer.Morse eagerly joins forces with NYC mob boss, Ben Tucker, who's got big plans to completely bankrupt the city's small-time numbers racket and grab all of the profits and business for himself, and his pals.As fate would have it, Joe's older brother, Leo (one of the many small-time racketeers) is certain to take a big fall once Tucker's merger goes into action.Complete with your standard double-crosses (and a cornball romance, thrown in for good measure), FOE is a fairly solid 78 minutes of prime movie-making from post-WW2 Hollywood.Even though I have no real complaints about Garfield's no-nonsense portrayal of Joe Morse, the crooked lawyer with a heart of gold, I honestly think that this role would've been better played by Humphrey Bogart.This film abounds with plenty of impressive, b&w camera-work, all, of course, set within the hubbub of New York City.

Red-Barracuda A corrupt lawyer Joe is hired by a rich gangster. A scam is concocted to ensure that all of the small numbers banks in New York will be bankrupted, leaving the way open for the gangster's syndicate to move in and buy them over. Joe's elder brother Leo runs one of these numbers banks, so Joe feels compelled to warn him of the situation which in turn puts him in an extremely compromised position.Under the surface, Force of Evil was an allegory of the corrupting nature of capitalism. All of the characters go thorough moral dilemmas and change their positions due to the possibilities of monetary gain. The way that big business works in a very underhand and amoral way in this film was meant as a comment on how actual business practises in post-war America could often be somewhat nefarious. The movie itself was not successful at the time. It may have been because of these themes but it might simply have been that this was a pretty complex movie that doesn't have clear heroes or villains. This very ambiguity has made it more cherished as the years have gone by but most probably contributed to it not being box office dynamite at the time. Force of Evil has, therefore, gone on to become one of the cult movies of film-noir.The acting and script are very good. But so is the look. There is some great New York location photography, particularly in the final third. While good expressionist use is made of light and shade. So, in summary, this is a serious-minded film-noir with a well crafted aesthetic. It's certainly a less well-known example of the genre but it's definitely one with quite a bit more going on under the surface than most.

Jackson Booth-Millard I had no idea of the plot line for this film, and I didn't understand much of what was happening when I watched, but being in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, I wasn't going to give up. The story is about lawyers getting involved in number rackets, and the protagonist, lawyer Joe Morse (John Garfield) crosses the ethical line with gangster client Ben Tucker (Roy Roberts). They are scheming to shut down all illegal banks in New York, and buy some up, Joe wants to do something good for his older brother Leo (Thomas Gomez) and force him out of the racket to work with the big boys. But Leo is happy in his small business, his employees are like family, and his secretary Doris Lowry (Beatrice Pearson) like a daughter, he doesn't want anything to do with Joe's scheme or the gangsters. Okay, I'll be honest, I don't think I payed enough attention to know all this. Also starring Howland Chamberlain as Freddie Bauer, Marie Windsor as Edna Tucker, Paul McVey as Hobe Wheelock, Tim Ryan as Johnson, Paul Fix as Bill Ficco, Jack Overman as Juice and Barbara Woodell as Mary - Joe's Secretary. The performances are very good, but I can see what the critics mean when they say that this film might not to everyone's taste, so even though I didn't get it, it is still an alright film noir. Good!