Watched: 06/22/2025
Format: TCM
Viewing: First
Director: John Reinhardt
This movie had the unfortunate combo of plodding pacing while feeling deeply convoluted. Throw in some off-brand talent and poverty row aesthetics, and it's not exactly one of the most polished movies you're going to see.
It's a bummer, because it feels like there's probably a good story or movie in here somewhere, but this probably isn't it.
There's just so many angles and storylines, and the movie runs only 72 minutes but has enough going on for something 45 minutes longer. It also uses the framing of "wow, this is awful. How did we wind up here?" with two of our leads in a car wreck at the beach, both trapped and waiting for the high tide to come in and kill them.
We flash back to a newspaper office with a tough editor, a weak-knee'd rich boy boss and our lead - who had been fired from the paper coming back to find out why his editor pal is making him the beneficiary on his high dollar life insurance.
There's multiple dames in play, gangsters, perturbed fired reporters. It's a lot. And it's kind of hard to care about forty minutes in as things just keep happening but it feels like the movie is spinning its wheels.
I just couldn't get into it. I wish I could say I did. But... alas.
Then, at the end, when they put all the pieces together, I was like "oh, that's actually really smart and cool". Alas, I just didn't maintain much interest to get me to that point. It's so short, I'll rewatch it soon to see if I like it better when I'm in a better headspace.
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