(Review originally written at 25 May 2006)
This movie is a quite peculiar and unique one. The movie its story can be divided into several parts. It makes the movie an inconsistent and perhaps even confusing one to watch.
The first and main part of the movie focuses on freelance truck drivers Paul and Joe Fabrini, played by George Raft and Humphrey Bogart. The second part focuses on the love triangle and the movie begins to show some light-'film-noir' elements. At the end the movie even turns into a court-drama. Overall the movie feels over-melodramatic at times and not all the elements in the movie really connect or are consistent and fitting with the rest of the movie its story and style. Some events that occur in the movie seem to be irrelevant for the movie its later story. The more and more the movie progresses toward the ending, the more and more irrelevant the first halve of the movie begins to look. The Bogart character plays a big and significant part in the first halve but his character is almost totally abandoned in the second halve of the movie.
Not everything that happens in the movie is likely, mainly due to the inconsistency of the story. It's hard to connect all the different elements and moments of the movie and look upon this movie is a successful and complete whole. The movie is certainly watchable and it does has its good moments in it but it is unfortunately not enough to make this movie a terribly interesting or likable one to watch.
It's hard to say what it is that makes this movie a good or a bad one to watch, since the movie itself is hard to qualify.
It by no means is an horrible movie to watch and there certainly ain't much wrong with the acting and directing and it also certainly ain't no boring one to watch but its inconsistency made the movie peculiar and not always as enjoyable to watch, especially when the movie is getting filled with some unlikely events and strange character treatment's.
But still the movie is filled with more than enough reasons why this movie is still a watchable one. The directing and acting are just two of those things. Historicaly this movie is also a pretty interesting one to watch. It provides a good view at how truck drivers lived and worked in the '40's. It was funny to see how completely different truck drivers were back then, compared to the truck drivers now days. Truck drivers back in the '40's seemed to be slick, quick boys instead of the fat, bearded, tattooed, stereotypical truck drivers now days. Also the way of working seemed to be completely different back then.
Raoul Walsh, George Raft and Humphrey Bogart have all done far better movies in their careers.
6/10
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