By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

This obviously is not one of Bogart's most famous films, it should be cause it is an entertaining film noir that holds your interest from start to finish. They don't make 'em like this anymore. The plot involves Bogart as a D.A., whose star witness in bringing the head of a murder racket to justice dies before the trial. In a lengthy flashback, Bogart retraces the case from the beginning, looking for some bit of testimony that might help him nail the killer before he gets set free. Bogart is good as his usual tough-guy self, and is trying to prosecute the boss man of a Murder Incorporated type of crime organization but keeps running into road blocks with people getting killed. Bogie plays it well although Bogie could play Mary Poppins and make it look good.At the end Bogie does what Bogie does well. This is a great movie. If you are a Bogart fan, this is a must have.

. . . which gave rise to one of the great lines of all gangster movies, "Can this be the end of Rico?" That's the question that assistant district attorney Ferguson's star witness, Joseph Rico, wails after Bogie lets him slip nine stories above the pavement. Ferguson's clunky caper leaves so much room for improvement, it inspired key elements of most subsequent Alfred Hitchcock movies. For instance, the ludicrously complicated murder-by-stranger premise of THE ENFORCER is beautifully simplified by Hitch to "Criss-Cross" for STRANGERS ON A TRAIN. A marsh mysteriously preserving the eyes of corpses for weeks on end becomes the more plausible bog which swallows Jamie Leigh Curtis' mom in the middle of PSYCHO. The constantly-spreading circle of connections to be "rubbed out" around "Albert Mendoza" here foreshadows the necktie killer in FRENZY. A better question might be, "Which later Hitchcock flicks were NOT heavily influenced by THE ENFORCER?

For some reason, I thought this film was a lot earlier than 1951. The reason is that it looks for all the world like a B movie and sounds like one. It's possible Bogart owed Warners a film, though what his excuse was for making "The Two Mrs. Carrolls" I've never figured out. He must have owed them a lot of films. Apparently the director became quite ill and Bogart asked Raoul Walsh, who refused to take any credit, to take over. This helps the film to come off well, but to me it still seems like a B movie with an A list star and director."The Enforcer" is a crime noir, with Bogart as Martin Ferguson, a frustrated District Attorney who loses yet another witness against a crime boss, Albert Mendoza (Everett Sloane). Ferguson's witness (Ted de Corsia) is due to go into court the next day, but he panics and tries to leave via a window too many flights up.Ferguson stays up the night before the trial with Captain Nelson (Roy Roberts) going over the case incident by incident, trying to figure out if there is anybody else who can help him put this killer in prison.There are flashbacks within flashbacks here as different people tell a story about the organization.I liked the denouement of this movie. I found it effective and also suspenseful.Bogart, as usual, is great, as the no-nonsense DA, and he has good support from Zero Mostel, Sloane, King Donovan, and Michael Tolan, among others.Good crime drama.

I've long been convinced that popular fiction and movies are true barometers of social history and The Enforcer tends to bear me out. What five-year-old child at any time in the last forty years would be unable to interpret 'contract' and 'hit' when encountered in the context of a thriller/noir/caper/gangster movie yet here, in 1951, both hard-bitten detectives and an Assistant District Attorney are as bemused as Hoosier tourists hearing Urdu for the first time whilst on vacation in the sub-Continent. For a few moments this tends to strain credulity when watching this in 2010 but we're soon wallowing in the great casting that tosses such disparate actors as Bob Steele, Zero Mostel, Everett Sloane, Roy Roberts, Ted de Corsica and Bogie into the mix. Bogie is, it must be said, strangely subdued as yet another D.A. -he had, after all, been playing them since Marked Woman, Knock On Any Door, etc - but even the multi flashbacks can't really spoil this good old-fashioned 'thick ear' entry.