Review of The Big Combo (1955) by Andrew L — 04 Dec 2015

The Big Combo is an old crime drama that was released early 1955. Its main storyline is the classic good vs evil plot. The director did a really good job of depicting certain dilemmas some of the main characters had with personal struggles to choose between right and wrong. One thing in this film that is portrayed well is that there is three different groups of people; the good guys, the bad guys, and then those who are bad who end up doing the right thing. The director did a good job expressing that even though you may be in a bad situation where you are involved with close friends, that it's never too late to make the right decision.

Lt. Diamond seems to be on a personal mission to make sure that he gets his man, Mr. Brown. Mr. Brown is the organized crime boss who has become extremely powerful and wealthy. I really enjoyed how the film portrays Mr. Brown. He is one evil guy, who appears to be heartless. Earlier on in the film Mr. Brown is talking to a boxer and is explaining to him what makes him so "successful" compared to others, his secret is hate. That is what has motivated him, that and power, money and girls. It was a very insightful scene into letting us see more into his life. Mr. Brown has two helpers, Mingo and Fante. They do everything that they are told from Mr. Brown. They are too loyal to such an evil man.

Lt. Diamond is portrayed as a typical cop in that he is a good guy who just wants the right thing done and works tirelessly to make sure that happens. He encounters many situations and setbacks, including that his own superior thinks he is wasting his time, trying to bring down Mr. Brown and how he has used too much money try to accomplish it. But in the end his hard work pays off.

Mr. Brown, as it first starts off, has a girlfriend who keeps trying to escape from him because she is mistreated. As she tries to escape over and over again Mingo and Fante are assigned to keep her on a tight leash. It gets to the point where his girlfriend takes some pills in order to try and kill herself. Luckily for her she gets taken to the hospital in time and survives. But as she was close to dying she repeated "Alicia" multiple times, which gives Lt. Diamond a new lead and even closer to bringing down Mr. Brown. It ends up that Alicia was Mr. Brown's ex-wife, who is in a crazy house because she witnessed so many evil things that Brown did. She ends up being of great help to Lt. Diamond.

Mr. Brown ends up losing patience and starts committing more crimes, so much so that Mingo and Fante have to hide in a hotel for a couple days in order to stay out of sight from the cops. They don't have much food and are surrounded by a lot of alcohol. Mr. Brown shows up one day to bring them food and lots of money so that they can escape and be able to live for a while. As they open the box of money, they realize that Mr. Brown put a bomb in the box and it explodes. Fante dies and Mingo is badly injured. At first Mingo is hesitant to rat out Mr. Brown even after he tries to kill them! But Mingo ended up telling the Lt. what happened. Brown is nowhere to be seen, but his ex-wife knows where he is hiding, at his private airport. Lt. Diamond final is able to get Mr. Brown.