Brute Force
Posted by martinteller on May 13, 2007
Pretty good prison genre flick, done with a lot of Dassin’s noir style but falters in a few areas. Despite a delightfully evil performance by Hume Cronyn as the sadistic chief guard, the character is rather over-the-top. Also the prisoners are such a nice bunch of guys, one would think that nobody deserves to be incarcerated. The flashbacks to their romantic lives on the outside were really hokey. I haven’t listened to the DVD commentary, but I do wonder if Dassin threw them in there primarily to bring in more women. Overall, however, not a bad movie at all, and easily watchable. Rating: 7
