Review of The Asphalt Jungle (1950) by Justin A — 12 Jul 2010

Part of why "The Asphalt Jungle" was so suspenseful and fresh was due to its screenplay and directing. I'm not a huge fan of John Huston, this being the first film I've "connected to" in certain way. Forget "The Treasure of Serra Madre" or "The Maltese Falcon", "The Asphalt Jungle" had a certain amount of pressure riding on you through-out the entire running time. Maybe it's because of the threads that pop up, pieces of the characters that are mentioned, or even the history of how certain stories started that are left in the dark that give this film real substance.

From the beginning you understand that the story has to be about a failed attempt at a robbery yet to happen. Even if you've read the synopsis, every character is working on a different level, though they're all working on the same job. The character interactions were far less melodramatic than one would think; even though there's a fair share of that particular quality one expects in a film-noir.

As I said above, I'm not really a fan of John Huston, but he does seem to have an advanced knowledge of film growth; whether it be directing, acting, photography, writing. Watching one of his films I can't help but think he had to tone down his directing method by maybe 15 years. Does that make sense? He seems to have an edgier quality that wasn't going to be widely accepted by the movie-going population, so he maybe took it back and even 'dumbed' down some of the characters and stories for people to understand that they were just watching a movie. There's a difference between real life and movies, no doubt. But back in the day, there was even a greater amount of separation between the movies and real life. I know little about John Huston and his directing method, but it's something I think about everytime I see one of his films.

Of all the great things I have to say about this film, there were still traditional heist trappings. That could be because I've seen so many of these type of films that were made after 1950, that finally when I got to this one, nothing was as truly surprising as it should have been. There's only so many ways you can go with a heist film. There are different kinds of stories in this genre though, but this one isn't about the risky job, or planning, this is about the characters and how they function before and after the job. The actual robbery itself lasted about 5 minutes; which really surprised me. I have to say though that the 30 minute robbery scene in "Rififi" was so full of suspense that I could hardly stand it. "The Asphalt Jungle" digs out a different kind of suspense, something that's more in touch with emotion and down to earth, something that is a little more relatable. And that's why it was so exciting to watch.