Miguel Vargas, a Mexican narcotics detective, is on his honeymoon with wife Susie in a Mexican-American border town when a car-bomb goes off. Though on the U.S. side, Vargas takes interest in the investigation and meets American Hank Quinlan, a steely, experienced detective in charge of the case. Rather quickly, Quinlan places blame on a young Mexican man related to the car-bomb’s victim, but Vargas isn’t convinced. He starts investigating the case himself and finds evidence of foul play. Meanwhile, “Uncle” Joe Grandi, the brother of a man Vargas has indicted back in Mexico, has Susie Vargas captured. Grandi, along with sympathetic Americans, plan to frame and discredit the Miguel Vargas—leading to a tense race to be the first to crack the case.
Though I’ve made it clear time and again that I do not generally like film noir, there were elements of this flick I enjoyed. It was less moody and moved better than other film noirs I’ve seen. I think the change of location to an untrustworthy border town added to the film’s relative freshness. And making Vargas’s “good cop” position extra challenging by making him entirely an outsider, but one with political influence, was a genius tight-rope walk. The camera work in this film is excellent. First is the film’s famous opening scene, a one-shot that follows a stealthy bomb that *we* know is there (with tension accentuated by Henri Mancini’s ticking score). There was a brilliant claustrophobia of making our opposing characters share a frame with each other that I appreciated.
But I still didn’t *love* the film. Orson Welles' fat Quinlan and Joe Grandi were both a bit cartoonish. And Charlton Heston—who I’m pretty sure was wearing brown-face—made for an unconvincing and uncomfortable Mexican man. The film played with tension well, but didn’t match my preferences. Perhaps a modern day remake? I don’t normally advocate for that, but I think this story has merit and could benefit from an updating.