More Like Homicide Bureaucracy
This weekend's review: Homicide Bureau.
Homicide Bureau caught my attention because Rita Hayworth was in it. Since it also had the potential to be a noir and was less than an hour long, I figured it was worth a watch. Once I’d finished it, I concluded that I’d enjoyed myself, even if the movie isn’t that much to write home about.
The plot of the movie is relatively straightforward. A crime wave is sweeping the city, and the police are being lambasted for it while also unable to do anything about it thanks to red tape. They still attempt to do the best they can, including bringing in a new forensics specialist (or the 1939 equivalent), J.G. Bliss (Hayworth). One of the members of the homicide division, Detective Jim Logan (Bruce Cabot), appears to get lucky when he collects some evidence after a shooting in a pool hall, but the criminals are one step ahead of him, eventually leading him to be dismissed from the case. Unable to be direct, Logan turns to more roundabout ways to get the facts, culminating in uncovering the truth behind the criminal’s scheme. All pretty familiar stuff, but the way it’s handled is fairly interesting.
I think it’s fair to say that the first fifteen or so minutes of this movie are very surprising, but in the best sort of way. First, we get Logan complaining about how the force is hamstrung by rules and regulations, something his boss Captain Haines (Moroni Olsen) agrees with but has to go along with. We’ve all probably seen discussions like this in cop movies/shows before, but there’s something about this particular conversation that feels very refreshing, perhaps because the rant is directed at the public in general instead of one smarmy government official, as is so often the case in scenarios like this. Then Logan gets told to pick up Bliss, and even though the audience (especially a modern day audience) can tell immediately that Bliss is going to turn out to be a woman, the fact that a woman is going to be in charge of the forensics department in 1939 is unusual, but also makes her more impressive almost by default. And then we get to watch the bad guys as they outline their plan (I won’t spoil it directly, but take a look at the year number I keep mentioning and you can probably hazard a guess if you’re a history buff) and even make reference to the law of supply and demand. That’s not something that often gets brought up in movies, which again makes the movie feel like it’s trying something different. I had gone into the movie mildly curious, but the first fifteen minutes got me genuinely invested.
Sadly, the movie can’t fully sustain that level of freshness. Some of the characters wind up acting like idiots at times; I particularly had to shake my head at one undercover operative who chooses to pick a fight with the bad guys instead of realizing he should be keeping his head down, which you would think he’d have known to do anyway given what we know of him. Bliss doesn’t actually get all that much to do and becomes a love interest even though she and Logan don’t interact too much and we thus have to rely solely on tropes to buy the romance. The scene in the pool hall is shot in such a way that I was convinced that the pool hall owner was in league with the bad guys, but it quickly becomes clear that that wasn’t the intent. And thanks to being under an hour long, a lot of the plot beats are rushed and thus feel a little contrived or convenient. I probably shouldn’t have expected too much from what’s clearly a short little B-movie, but since it started out so promisingly, the rest felt like more of a letdown.
For all that, though, the movie isn’t bad by any means. I don’t know if it was intentional or not, but the movie does seem to be trying to send a message (though happily not an in-your-face one) about needing to find a middle ground between overregulation of the police and the more violent vigilante style that Logan wants to employ. It’s clearly not in support of the former, but since Logan gets punished for the latter, it doesn’t seem to be wholly on his side either, and I find that interesting. Also, while Bliss may wind up being a minor player, she’s always depicted as competent at her job, so even if she does take on the expected role of “love interest”, she’s still a contender for my “Best Female Characters” list. On a related note, the forensics we see on display are pretty neat, though at this point mostly from a time capsule perspective. So even if the main elements of the plot are predictable and a little bland, the trappings surrounding them remain somewhat interesting, hence my overall enjoyment.
Would I recommend the movie? Yes, I think so. Not only is it short (thus meaning you won’t have to invest too much of your time in it), but the unusual elements in it are worth a look. So give it a try if you can get your hands on a copy. Perhaps you’ll be as pleasantly surprised as I was.
Homicide Bureau caught my attention because Rita Hayworth was in it. Since it also had the potential to be a noir and was less than an hour long, I figured it was worth a watch. Once I’d finished it, I concluded that I’d enjoyed myself, even if the movie isn’t that much to write home about.
The plot of the movie is relatively straightforward. A crime wave is sweeping the city, and the police are being lambasted for it while also unable to do anything about it thanks to red tape. They still attempt to do the best they can, including bringing in a new forensics specialist (or the 1939 equivalent), J.G. Bliss (Hayworth). One of the members of the homicide division, Detective Jim Logan (Bruce Cabot), appears to get lucky when he collects some evidence after a shooting in a pool hall, but the criminals are one step ahead of him, eventually leading him to be dismissed from the case. Unable to be direct, Logan turns to more roundabout ways to get the facts, culminating in uncovering the truth behind the criminal’s scheme. All pretty familiar stuff, but the way it’s handled is fairly interesting.
I think it’s fair to say that the first fifteen or so minutes of this movie are very surprising, but in the best sort of way. First, we get Logan complaining about how the force is hamstrung by rules and regulations, something his boss Captain Haines (Moroni Olsen) agrees with but has to go along with. We’ve all probably seen discussions like this in cop movies/shows before, but there’s something about this particular conversation that feels very refreshing, perhaps because the rant is directed at the public in general instead of one smarmy government official, as is so often the case in scenarios like this. Then Logan gets told to pick up Bliss, and even though the audience (especially a modern day audience) can tell immediately that Bliss is going to turn out to be a woman, the fact that a woman is going to be in charge of the forensics department in 1939 is unusual, but also makes her more impressive almost by default. And then we get to watch the bad guys as they outline their plan (I won’t spoil it directly, but take a look at the year number I keep mentioning and you can probably hazard a guess if you’re a history buff) and even make reference to the law of supply and demand. That’s not something that often gets brought up in movies, which again makes the movie feel like it’s trying something different. I had gone into the movie mildly curious, but the first fifteen minutes got me genuinely invested.
Sadly, the movie can’t fully sustain that level of freshness. Some of the characters wind up acting like idiots at times; I particularly had to shake my head at one undercover operative who chooses to pick a fight with the bad guys instead of realizing he should be keeping his head down, which you would think he’d have known to do anyway given what we know of him. Bliss doesn’t actually get all that much to do and becomes a love interest even though she and Logan don’t interact too much and we thus have to rely solely on tropes to buy the romance. The scene in the pool hall is shot in such a way that I was convinced that the pool hall owner was in league with the bad guys, but it quickly becomes clear that that wasn’t the intent. And thanks to being under an hour long, a lot of the plot beats are rushed and thus feel a little contrived or convenient. I probably shouldn’t have expected too much from what’s clearly a short little B-movie, but since it started out so promisingly, the rest felt like more of a letdown.
For all that, though, the movie isn’t bad by any means. I don’t know if it was intentional or not, but the movie does seem to be trying to send a message (though happily not an in-your-face one) about needing to find a middle ground between overregulation of the police and the more violent vigilante style that Logan wants to employ. It’s clearly not in support of the former, but since Logan gets punished for the latter, it doesn’t seem to be wholly on his side either, and I find that interesting. Also, while Bliss may wind up being a minor player, she’s always depicted as competent at her job, so even if she does take on the expected role of “love interest”, she’s still a contender for my “Best Female Characters” list. On a related note, the forensics we see on display are pretty neat, though at this point mostly from a time capsule perspective. So even if the main elements of the plot are predictable and a little bland, the trappings surrounding them remain somewhat interesting, hence my overall enjoyment.
Would I recommend the movie? Yes, I think so. Not only is it short (thus meaning you won’t have to invest too much of your time in it), but the unusual elements in it are worth a look. So give it a try if you can get your hands on a copy. Perhaps you’ll be as pleasantly surprised as I was.