The Big Heat

Fritz Lang became a master of film noir even in the United States, and in the movie The Big Heat, he beautifully demonstrated this. Excellent characters, perhaps all of them, a great story that begins with an excellent scene where it's unclear who actually killed the policeman and what happened, and then just tough unraveling where no one can be sure how it will end. (29/11/2014)

The Big Heat is a delicate crime film about a cop who dares to destroy the leaders of a mafia syndicate linked to politics. It is intelligently written, superbly cast, fast and dynamic, even using narrative shortcuts in places. No wonder the film made Glenn Ford a star. His likable but strict and uncompromising avenging hero is a balanced counterpart to the repulsive, anxiety-inducing gangsters. The clash of their worlds pins the viewers to their seats. Putting diverse female characters in the story – from a nice wife, through a gold-digging widow to martyr-like “companions” (one of whom plays a key role in the story) – is also surgically accurate. It is a Hollywood masterpiece that, among recent movies, is thematically closest to Brian Helgeland’s Payback, for example. (25/08/2014)

Proper craftsmanship, but without the stylistic ambitions that Hitch or Billy Wilder were able to add to their films (and Lang himself doesn't fall short here either). Thanks to the breakneck pace and distinctive, reasonably motivated characters, however, it’s probably the absolute prototype for the bloody tales of private revenge that Hollywood still loves to this day. Glenn Ford is an exemplarily charismatic tough guy and Gloria Grahame a memorably unbound femme fatale. 85% (05/06/2018)