That was an excellent one.

Good movie but grossly overrated

As Good As It Gets

Blistering performances.

So I'm four feet tall, fat and ugly, but I'm the toughest guy on the force, see? And my name is Johnny Blake, only I look more like Immanuel Blakenstein, get it? Jack Warner told me I can't play gangsters any more, so now I'm a cop. A fat, ugly, four foot tall cop who looks like a clown air-punching guys twice my size. Then I get canned from the force, see? But really I'm going undercover, and I'm really a good cop who's out to shut down the rackets. It's okay, my old pal Bogart is playing the second banana hood, and the two of us have a shoot out at the end. I don't really point my gun, I just close my eyes and shoot in the air, and then you see him fall. This ain't KEY LARGO, kids.But say, what the hell! Bogart got me too. So then my best girl picks me up in her car, and we spend about ten minutes talking about how our love was meant to be, and all the while I'm gut shot. You can see on my face, I'm in pain, only it really looks like I've got gas. Gas, get me? Like I've been eating too much pompano, and mixing it with champagne. Or maybe I ate too much of that new Soylent product, Soylent Green. Now that's a picture! BULLETS OR BALLOTS is the kind of movie that makes a guy want to go to the Exchange, and tell them all about Soylent. And then go home.

Tough cop Johnny Blake (Edward G. Robinson) goes undercover with the mob run by Al Kruger (Barton MacLane). He clashes with Kruger's ambitious right-hand man Nick "Bugs" Fenner (Humphrey Bogart). One of the many villainous gangster parts Bogie had to play in the '30s. It might not have been that challenging for him but he was very good at it. It's great fun watching the diminutive Robinson slug wise guys right and left and they just have to take it. Joan Blondell plays Blake's friend who's crazy about him. But he has no room for dames, see? He's a man on a mission. Love these WB gangster flicks! Any gangster picture with Edward G. Robinson is tops in my book. Add Bogart, Blondell, MacLane, and Frank McHugh and you've got yourself a winner.

Johnny Blake (Edward G Robinson) is kicked off the police force and hooks up with Al Kruger's (Barton MacLane) gangsters. However, he is actually working undercover and is gunning for Al's bosses. Along the way, he crosses swords with Fenner (Humphrey Bogart).....This film is easy entertainment but it must be stressed that it is a boy's film. The main female in the cast is Joan Blondell who plays "Lee Morgan" but she does not have a very big role. She runs a small racket in the "numbers" game which Al's gang takes over with Blake at the head. This provides a misunderstanding between Blake and Lee, who are friends. Lee feels betrayed and she unknowingly betrays his whereabouts to Fennel for a showdown at the end. The showdown is pretty lame. The two of them stumble across each other and start shooting. One shoots the other and the other shoots the other back. Pathetic! Edward G Robinson is OK in the lead. He is likable but does not make enough of an emotional connection for us to really care about what happens to him at the end. It is also laughable when he punches one of the tough gangsters to the ground surrounded in a room by several other tough gangsters. All much taller than him. I don't think so! He would have been battered. On the other hand, Humphrey Bogart is excellent as a hard man and he wins the acting honours in this film. Frank McHugh has a small role as "Herman" in a one of those unfunny comedy roles and he is a complete tool.As regards the plot, it is all a load of nonsense. NO WAY would Al give Blake such a powerful position in his organization. There is also NO WAY that the other gangsters would have tolerated this ex-policeman, especially as the cartels start to get broken up soon after his arrival. How obvious! The film is OK to watch and passes the time and the character that sticks in the mind is Humphrey Bogart. I'm not sure if the film is worth keeping onto, though.

A solid, non-formulaic Warners gangster flick, "Bullets Or Ballots" showcases Edward G. Robinson in one of his most tough-nosed performances, as a cop-turned-gangster who won't be outmuscled, not even by Humphrey Bogart in one of HIS most tough-nosed roles."Finally got wise to you," Bogart's Bugs Fenner tells Robinson's Johnny Blake at one point. "You're through.""Oh no, I'm just starting," is Blake's cool reply. And he is."Bullets Or Ballots" has some problems, starting with that title. A reform-minded journalist makes a point early that "They rule by the fear of their bullets - they must be smashed by the power of your ballots." One might expect a movie where Robinson plays an honest alderman up against a crooked mayor, a la Jimmy Walker (the movie is set in New York City).It's not like that at all. Instead, the journalist is gunned down seven minutes in, and the rest of the film is set up when Blake is thrown off the force for "inefficiency". If he can't beat the mugs, he might as well join them. Rico he's not."Bullets Or Ballots" is a different kind of mob movie that way, and in other ways, too. Director William Keighley de-emphasizes gunplay in favor of sit-down confrontations. The script, by veteran Hollywood scripter Seton I. Miller and former crime reporter Martin Mooney, spends much time going over how criminal enterprises actually operate, with numbers games, pinball rackets, and money counters behind hidden walls. It even suggests a reality where the true mob masterminds are disguised as capitalist plutocrats. "The pillars of the community are the pillagers" is how Dana Polan puts it in his useful DVD commentary.Bugs is not the leader of the mob Blake winds up in; rather he's a hard-charging number-two to Barton MacLane's more civil-minded Al Kruger. The difference between Fenner and Kruger reflects a different take on gangster life, that bad guys aren't necessarily nasty men and in fact can be more dangerous and larcenous by eschewing obvious thuggery. Bogart does a great job playing against this as what Kruger calls "a strong-arm gangster" determined to prove Blake is still a cop working undercover. His scenes with both Robinson and MacLane are among the best in the movie.Robinson is the man, though, his Blake a character of total sureness and cool under pressure. Even when you think he may be less than on the level, you can't help admiring and rooting for Blake. "You don't miss much," Kruger asks him, and he doesn't.I wouldn't have missed the weak female-friendly subplot with Joan Blondell or lame comic relief bits with Frank McHugh as a character who can't remember names or add numbers. Joe King plays the new police boss who throws Blake off the force about as stiff as a pair of cement overshoes.But like Polan says, this film moves like lightning and asks some interesting questions about law enforcement in a free society. More important, it offers Robinson plenty of chances to throw his weight around. Nobody threw their weight around like him.