Worthless and Weak

So I thought of maybe doing reviews of the movies that I see. So enjoy:

The Maltese Falcon

The Maltese Falcon, starring Humphrey Bogart and Mary Astor, may be the most stereotypical noir film ever. It starts with a beautiful young woman named Brigid (Astor) walking into the office of private detective Sam Spade (Bogart). Spade's partner is killed while working for Brigid, and soon Spade finds himself drawn into a mystery involving an immensely valuable statue from the island of Malta.

While the plot is interesting enough to keep your attention, it is the interactions between the characters which bring the movie to life. You can see Sam and Brigid slowly falling for each other, yet still not completely trusting each other.

It becomes clear that every character is in it for his or herself, trying to play all the characters off one another. There is one scene, when Spade and the chief villain, Mr. Gutman (Syndey Greenstreet) talk about the fate of a hired thug named Wilmer (Elisha Cook Jr.) directly in front of him. While Mr. Gutman refuses to directly say that he will make Wilmer into the "fall guy," he discusses it using hypotheticals in such a way that Wilmer knows he with each passing sentence, the chance of him going to jail grows.

Like much of film noir, The Maltese Falcon is a dark, gritty film. There are characters with redeeming features, but even the heroes have very dark sides, and are distant and cold emotionally.

Overall, the movie is terrific. The plot isn't as complicated as some may desire, most of the characters are more or less what they seem, but in many ways, that is a feature, not a bug, by letting the viewer know precisely who the auxiliary characters are, it allows the viewer to better connect with the main characters. A true classic, perhaps the best of Noir film of all time.

Labels: Movie reviews