| Exploding! Like a gun in your face! |
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| written by eifert |
September 4, 2004 - 11:04 PM PDT |
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2 out of 2 members found this review helpful
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Kansas City Confidential is an excellent film noir on the cheap. It stars John Slightly Scarlet Payne playing a revenge-minded ex-con trying to even the score. (He's framed while driving a truck full of posies - probably the most unlikely guy to be framed for a bank job.) Like his part in 99 River Street, director Phil Karlson has Payne playing it both tough, street smart and at the same time good hearted. Yet there's no doubt that he could turn into a killer at any moment. The heist and eventual double crosses are good and very clever for this type of crime picture. I was also surprised (in a good way) that the movie showed some of the police as corrupt - by showing a false arrest and eventual beating. Not to mention a very bad cop behind it all. This movie proves once again that b-noirs were just as good as the big budget ones with Mitchim and Lancaster. And how about the bad guys? Lee Van Cleef AND Jack Elam. Nice.
The film's title is misleading, though. Only a very small part of the film takes place in Kansas City. Almost all of it is in Mexico. |
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