Good movie but grossly overrated

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

if we call this artwork, Film, so what we have to call these recent movies? what this movie has that others has not? the answer is Form and content. this movie all made in a police quarter. its all happen there. the movie based on Characterizations. each character has individual spirit . the story comes out from the characters. that is the cinema. it means story is character and character means story. that is the key pro of this film. other thing that we cant find in recent movies( specially we cant find nearly from 1980 up to now) is evolution of character. it means character in the point of A must have differences from point B. for example kark douglas in the beginning of film is different from the kirk douglas in the end of film. its is not just kirk, all the characters have evolution process. God bless william wyler the great.

What is someone supposed to do when he realizes that he has been living a lie? That everything he values is a fraud? These are the questions that this story raises. Kirk Douglas gives another incredibly strong and compelling performance, this time as a police detective whose arrogance and pride blocks him from realizing the realities and shortcomings of his own life. The story is a tragedy. The principle character has many virtues but is brought down by his character flaws. He is on a personal crusade, not knowing, or refusing to acknowledge, the real target of his scorn. To face the truth would mean to question the purpose of his life, and whether his life his worth living. The production is stagy, the story a little contrived, but Kirk Douglas and the rest of the cast, including Eleanor Parker, manage to transcend those limitations and deliver performances that galvanize the story and keep the audience engaged. This movie is outstanding.

I am a big fan of film noir from the 50s, and so I picked this for a Sunday evening watch. However, Detective Story does not really fall in that genre. This movie is much more than stylish - it has oodles of substance. The story unfolds largely within the confines of a police station and much of the action occurs within one large room. The pacing is brisk, and most of the characters are introduced fairly early. Kirk Douglas turns in an intense performance as Jim McLeod - a ruthless crime fighting cop who has a stark view of the world as made up of good guys and bad. He and prosecutes all crime, no matter how minor, with a brutal zeal. He does not believe in extenuating circumstances. The first half of the movie leads you to think that you are watching an entertaining crime drama where McLeod is the upright cop who, whilst chafing at the bounds of permissible legal conduct, seeks to bring an influential, wealthy, and well-lawyered crook to justice. In his mind, McLeod has convicted and damned the crook with a ferocious loathing. It is the sudden mid-story twist that brings this film into its own. McLeod's relentless persecution precipitates a personal crisis that will alter his own life forever. In the second half, the movie grapples with surprising emotional intensity with eternal questions - who are we to judge, in damning others do we damn ourselves, and how do we bring ourselves to forgive? I was so engrossed that I postponed my loo break until the very end. This is a fantastic movie - loved it.

The detective in question is Kirk Douglas' Jim McGuire, a literally take-no-prisoners detective in a tough New York precinct. His zero-tolerance approach to crime as against the more understanding outlook of his fellow detectives remains topical today of course. The film takes the viewer through a 24 hour time-period in the station and as such can be sen as a precursor of quality TV cop-shows from "Hill Street Blues" onwards.To be sure, it occasionally shows its theatrical origins with its set-bound scenario and occasionally moralistic and speechy dialogue, but for the most part the characters ring true as people rather than types, with their words both street-smart and sharp. It also introduces the tricky subject of back-street abortionist practices, although naturally the word abortion itself doesn't make it past the censor's cut.Stories, characters, scenes and at times, dialogue overlap to give a workaday, vernacular feel to proceedings and the acting throughout is committed and yet natural. It obviously helped that a lot of the supporting roles are filled by cast members of the long-running Broadway play which sourced the film.In the two leads Douglas and Parker are both excellent although their parts are a little unevenly written at times. Those look like real tears they're both shedding however in their climactic scene and while the ending is a touch melodramatic, somewhat contradicting the realism of what had gone before, it at least gets across its moral point with Douglas' last minute conversion to humaneness.The supporting cast are excellent, especially the actors playing the cops, lending a palpable "fly-on-the-wall" feel to director Wyler's proceedings. In conclusion, a fine film, although I wasn't sure if I'd enjoyed a theatrical rather than a cinematic experience by the final reel.