Customer Reviews

Finger Man [VHS]

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Casey Martin(Frank Lovejoy)is a small time hoodlum picked up by the police for a truck robbery.Casey is promised by the police a pardon if he will get inside the local mob run by mob bigwig Dutch Becker(Forest Tucker)and help break up his rackets.
At first Casey refuses but after seeing his drugged up sister and finds Becker was responsible at last agrees.
Dutch signs Casey up,but he has a dislike for Lou Terpe(Timothy Carey)one of Beckers simple minded hoods.
Good Film Noir Crime Thriller.
Id give this a B.
Now,where is the DVD?

This is a nifty little Republic noir which benefits from good performances by a lot of familiar character actors. But unfortunately they are not the only thing familiar about this film. The basic plot is a fairly hoary one, the likes of which you've seen dozens if not hundreds of times on TV shows, without the zesty dialogue of Cry Danger or the kinetic energy of White Heat.

It involves a three-time loser who is caught and realizes if he doesn't work with the cops he will go away for a long time, so he decides to try and be more than a mug by helping them break a crime ring. As said before, all this is well-acted, but the lead character just seems a little too scrawny to play the tough guy, especially versus somebody like Timothy Carey (from Kubrick's The Killing). And the story unfolds just the way you expect it to.

Yet, if you like black-and-white 50's noir, rent it and see if you'd give it an extra star. Maybe I'm being overly harsh.