How sad is this?

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

Dead Reckoning is a film noir that would had benefited from a stronger leading lady and if the film had not followed the strictures of the film noir genre so slavishly.Humphrey Bogart gives a sardonic but tough performance as Captain Rip Murdock (Bogart) who searches for his friend and army buddy Sergeant Johnny Drake (William Prince) who fled when he was told he was to receive a medal after returning home from the war.Murdock goes to a southern coastal town and finds out that Drake has died. As he digs closer, he finds that Johnny was once involved with a femme fatale, singer Coral Chandler (Lizabeth Scott) and got mixed up with murder and a gangster. A reason why Johnny craved anonymity.The plot is perfunctory but does feel a little slippery here and there by being a little too convoluted at times.

"It is good that it was a little while back that we saw this movie, for it gave me a little bit of time to think about it," Kristl said."You changed your opinion?" Henry said."Well, I changed my point of view. I changed how I look at it.""If I recall you said it was a Maltese Falcon rip off? So, it isn't any longer?""Well.. it still is, but on the other hand there is nothing against making a movie that is similar to another. On the face of it, many stories are similar. A lot of stories have a bad evil rising and a good guy fighting and defeating it. Many stories have the idea of a discovery, usually in the form of an adventure in which the protagonist undergoes an experience and changes at the end.""Uhm OK.""The problem with Dead Reckoning isn't that it is similar to the Maltese Falcon, but that it doesn't work very well. It lacks all the great things that the Maltese Falcon makes such a great movie. The relation between Bogart and Scott has no spark, while the one between Bogart and Astor does work. Then there are no interesting side persons such as Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet. In the Maltese Falcon the Falcon ties the story together and greed is the driving force, in Dead Reckoning there is nothing.""It is a rather confused story.""It is…""As far as I got it, Bogey plays a Captain who follows the tracks of one of his subordinates and close friend Sergeant Drake. He discovers that he is killed in a fire. So what next?""Well.. Bogey the captain, goes to find out. He meets some guy who works in a club and who gives him a letter from Drake and then follows some muddle with a club owner who is a mob boss. The story meanders. And somewhere we got a situation that is almost similar to the Maltese Falcon: a game played between the cynical and hard boiled bogey and the 'femme fatale' Scott. It just falls flat and it is boring.""Okay.""You don't say much yourself.""Well, it is and old movie, but a bit boring. Like many of these old movies are, unless it's an adventure movie, like one with Errol Flynn. Like eh the Adventures of Robin Hood or adventures of Don Juan. Swashbuckling movies, with a charming hero. I just don't like these dark cynical movies. Light entertainment. Make life enjoyable." Henry gave Kristl a smile."Oh.. I sort of like them..""I gather that. Seems you tend to the dark side, my lady, while I tend to the light.""That sounds very Star Wars like.""Definitely.., it is.""Well….Yoda...just sit the next ones out.. and then it is your turn.""Good.. it is."www.meritcoba.com

Some Heavy-Handed, Anachronistic Traits keeps this from being a Top-Rung Film-Noir. The overuse of the Paratrooper Theme that becomes almost Cringe Inducing as the Movie moves along, and the usual Hard-Boiled Chandleresque Patter just never stops (there can be too much of a good thing).The Dark Atmosphere and even Darker Characters are Welcome and there is some Sharpness to the Proceedings although it does Weaken in the Romance Area at times and comes off as an Odd Coupling between Bogart and Lizabeth Scott. This is an Overwritten Story that has some good Lines, but a lot of it seems Artificial, going against the Noir Strength of Heightened Realism. This Entertaining Movie is too long and padded out to an, again, Unrealistic and Sappy Closing Line and Shot. But there is certainly enough here to make it worth a watch and is unarguably a Film-Noir, but finds its Flaws keeping it in the Midland of the Genre.

At this point in Humphrey Bogart's career, he was now a well enough established actor to be given free rein of his choice of director while on loan to Columbia Studios. He came up with John Cromwell who had given him his first break in the play Swifty, back in the 1920s. Cromwell decided to work with him again, but there was a problem, they had no story. According to Cromwell; they finally got this one , a noxious sort of thing , but I felt perhaps we could make something of it.' The 'noxious sort of thing' in question was Dead Reckoning, which turned out- unintentionally, it seems- to be almost a parody of The Maltese Falcon. Just like Sam Spade, Rip Murdock ( Bogart ) is trying to avenge the death of his partner; in this instance they were formerly paratrooper pals. It also borrows shamelessly from the film Double Indemnity, the same idea of a narrative voice-over commentary by Bogart. Even to the point of Fred MacMurray's repeated references to the smell of honeysuckle, in Double Indemnity, while Bogart harps on the smell of jasmine in the hair of co-star Lizabeth Scott. Sadly there is not the same friction and chemistry between Bogart/Scott as with MacMurray/Stanwyck. Bogart in this movie does not really seem interested in his sexy leading lady Scott, and it shows on film. Sadly for Lizabeth Scott, as an actress she was not lucky enough to have been taken under the wing of a brilliant Svengali-like director, which had been the main factor in setting Lauren Bacall on the road to success. But I still found her performance is exceptional under the circumstances and more interesting than Bogart's. While not near one of his best films, it is still a curiosity to see for Bogart fans and Scott fans alike. Either you'll like it or you won't, I'll let the reader decide for themselves.