Stoutor It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

Taha Avalos The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Mandeep Tyson The acting in this movie is really good.

Josephina Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

evanston_dad I was surprised to see that the listed running time for "The Racket" is only 88 minutes, because the film feels MUCH longer. It's probably because there is so much plot and so many characters, too many, crammed into the brief running time. "The Racket" feels more ambitious than your standard noir because of its relatively epic scope, but that's also what I didn't care for. I like noirs when they're sleek and streamlined and focused. "The Racket" felt like it was all over the place, and it was difficult to feel truly vested in any one plot strand because there were so many vying for attention.I do give it credit for being a pretty gritty film for its time, and for unpredictably killing off a major character that in any other movie would have been ensured survival by the conventions of the genre.This film was a remake of the silent Lewis Milestone version from 1928, which happened to be nominated for Best Picture in the very first year of the Academy Awards. I've seen it, and from what I can remember the 1951 version bears little resemblance.Grade: B

LeonLouisRicci Slightly above average crime drama with Film-noir elements that has some outstanding highlights and some very pedestrian lowlights.A couple of realistic action pieces and a vile, nasty performance from Robert Ryan are negated by some contrived side elements and stiff political posturing, and very weak love interests.Surprisingly the real bad guy..."the old man" who is the head of the crime syndicate is never brought to justice, or for that matter even identified. This is an intentional cover-up by the filmmakers and deliberately deflected at the end. As if to say, no matter how many of these street thugs we arrest, the master criminals of the Racket are above the law.This was a bold "oversight" slipped in, from an industry that was hand-cuffed by a code that stated...CRIME DOES NOT PAY. Very clever.

JohnWelles "The Racket" (1951) is directed by... well, quite a few different pairs of hands actually. John Cromwell gets the credit, but he had uncredited directing help from Nicholas Ray and Mel Ferrer. It's hardly surprising actually when you look at who owned RKO when the film was made. None other than Howard Hughes, who had a panache for taking directors off movies at the drop of the hat. In fact, "Vendetta" from 1950, went through six directors! This constant reshuffling in the director's chair probably accounts for the differing feel to the picture. The beginning, quite bland and unmemorable mutates into a very good middle section before ending predictably. It would be interesting to see who did what on the motion picture.The screenplay is by William Wister Haines and W.R. Burnett (author of "Little Caesar"), and based on a play of the same name by Bartlett Cormack, which was also the basis for the 1928 film "The Racket", directed by Lewis Milestone. It is about McQuigg (Robert Mitchum), the only honest police captain on the force, and his loyal patrolman, Johnson (William Talman). Together, they take on the violent Nick Scanlon (Robert Ryan), who is backed by The Syndicate. Together, they plan to elect Welch (Ray Collins), the crooked prosecutor running for judge.Mitchum and Ryan are very good, as usual, but there is certainly an added intensity when they share the screen, and Lizabeth Scott, Ray Collins and William Conrad all contribute, good solid performances. The photography, by George E. Diskant, is very nice indeed, full of shadows and darkness. In fact, with a slightly less routing screenplay and just one director, this could have turned out to be something special. Still, as it is, it is good enough and a lot better than its reputation.

Spikeopath The Racket is a remake of the 1928 film of the same name, itself based on a popular Bartlett Cormack play. With Howard Hughes backing the production it was beset with a number of problems, interference and a few director changes were prominent and the script was tampered with to try and capture the zeitgeist of the Kefauver Committee Hearings that were running prominently at the time. Plot in basic form pitches Robert Mitchum's honest police captain against Robert Ryan's no good crime boss, and the location is some corrupt American city (almost certainly Chicago).At the time of its making, the film had a cast list that cried out as a roll for film noir/crime movie big hitters: Robert Mitchum (Out of the Past), Robert Ryan (Crossfire), Lizabeth Scott (Pitfall) and William Talman (Armoured Car Robbery), while in support there was the likes of William Conrad (The Killers), Ray Collins (Leave Her to Heaven) and Virginia Huston (also Out of the Past). Even looking at the directors who contributed on the production sees some fine genre credentials: John Cromwell (Dead Reckoning), Nicholas Ray (In a lonely Place), Mel Ferrer (The Secret Fury) and Tay Garnett (The Postman Always Rings Twice). But too many cooks can often spoil the broth, such is the case here.Solid enough story that's unspectacular in its execution, a choppy yet just about watchable experience, and certainly a softer crime movie than it really ought to have been. It has often been coined as being a hard-hitting melodrama, but the decent thriller sequences are cloaked by a narrative that actually doesn't flow with any conviction. There's also the odd casting of Mitchum as a good guy to get around, and the film doesn't achieve that, namely because Mitchum plays it distinctly unenthusiastically. Ryan, too, looks to be going thru the motions, while Scott is woefully underused. Thankfully there's good work from Talman, Collins and Conrad to enjoy, while Huston impacts with what little she is given to work with.On a surface viewing it's easy to believe that The Racket is a better film than it is. We enjoy seeing Ryan doing snarly villainy and throwing punches, and Mitchum, in spite of walking thru the picture, is always a watchable presence. Pulses are raised too with some gun play, auto pursuits and a roof top punch up. But strip those away and you find the odd scene slotted in that doesn't make a great deal of sense, they exist but serve no purpose since the writing doesn't recall them later. There's also the whiff of stupidity about the way the makers were clearly trying to craft an intelligent take on organised crime, yet the police really don't have to do much to nail these bad boys. It's all very well portraying Mitchum and Talman as bastions of good and pure, but at least let them have to do work to bring down the crims! While the ending is wholly unsatisfactory.The names involved ensure the film is never boring, but confused messages and a jumbled narrative make it a film of big intentions but not much substance. As for film noir? Well it does contain film noir type characters, but really this is about as film noir as my day- glow socks. 5/10