Act of Violence

I should love this. The camera work is gorgeous, lush, and intoxicating. Every visual aspect of noir you expect to see and then some is in Act of Violence, but there's more than that. There are Wellesian touches and shots you'd see in westerns. Act of Violence is the kind of movie where it doesn't treat its visuals as a crutch, but instead as a crucial, informing piece of the movie itself., accentuating and complimenting the story. The tone is excellent. There are no unwelcome intrusions from forced humor, and no side stories trying to balance things out,. Act of Violence kicks off right into the action and never lets up. Anything that isn't in service of developing the story, the characters, or exploring the themes contained therein is gleefully left at the station once this train gets underway. The themes are not only complex, but brave considering the time this was released. Act of Violence suggests that war -- especially World War II, a war that was sold to the American public as nothing less than righteous and good and of divine mandate -- contains multitudes of hells, and those hells often follow the men home. It says that soldiers can, in the course of fighting for noble causes, commit ignoble acts. And it says that right and wrong isn't an absolute line, but a fuzzy spectrum, a near-heresy in the era of post-war America and in the height of the Hays Code. And it carries that through to the end, when several plot threads all converge at a conclusion that feels both avoidable and inevitable, that both serves justice as it preserves the peace while also causing immense tragedy. Act of Violence doesn't present its themes, nor how its characters handle them or its ending, as an answered question, but as a moral conundrum that can't have a definitive answer. I love all of this ... and yet I didn't love Act of Violence. I appreciate it. I respect it. I liked it. But I didn't love it. Is it because, at 82 minutes, it might be too taut for its own good? Frank Enley (played by Van Heflin) is a vet harboring a secret he has buried. He has a beautiful wife (Edith, played with steely agency by Janet Leigh) and a young child. His actions in the war are notable enough to get ink in the newspaper. The problem is, none of this is shown, it's told. There's no glimpses of this idyllic peace before the past comes back to haunt and hunt Frank in the form of his fellow platoon member Joe (Robert Ryan). Act starts with him going on a fishing trip, he figures out Joe is after him, he knows what Joe wants, and it's all white-knuckle tension from then on out. I'm not saying I want another 20 minutes tacked on, but maybe 10? A little time to see his war hero status in day to day life, a little time with the family to see the life he's built before the peace is shattered. Maybe Joe stalking the family, learning their habits and patterns, both to make him a more looming and sinister presence, but to also show him Frank's life and plant a seed so that later, his internal struggles have more punch. Is it also the casting? I'm not saying Heflin or Ryan are bad per se. They're not, they do a fine job. But I think there could've been better choices. Joseph Cotten comes to mind for the vengeance-minded Joe. Maybe Bing Crosby for Frank? Or Orson Welles? I'm not sure there ... all I know is I felt like he needed some boy-next-door charm, the kind Jimmy Stewart had at this stage, but without Stewart's "aw shucks" tendencies, so that when the twist comes, it feels believable. I would still strongly recommend Act of Violence. It is a bold, fresh entry in the annals of noir for those who want something other than a hard-boiled gumshoe, a dame with killer gams, and a smooth-talking gangster. The movie starts off with its foot on the gas and never lets up, and pushes the viewer to examine some uncomfortable ideas decades before the country was ready to consider such blasphemy. The lack of deeper connection to Act is strictly a me thing.