just watch it!

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.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

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.

John Huston directs an adaptation of a stage play but never really opens it up. It is essentially a home invasion thriller not too dissimilar to The Desperate Hours.Frank McCloud (Humphrey Bogart) is a drifter who arrives at a hotel in Key Largo during hurricane season to visit the family of an army buddy, George Temple killed in Italy. George's father, James Temple (Lionel Barrymore) is in a wheelchair and pleased to see Frank who he sees as a war hero. His widow Nora Temple (Lauren Bacall) manages the hotel with her father in law. The police in the area are looking for two native Indian prisoners who have escaped, while other native Indians are coming inland to escape the worse of the weather.Frank senses that a few of the characters hanging around the hotel are shady and they are hostile to Frank apart from a woman called Gaye (Claire Trevor) who is fond of a drink. It turns out that holed out in the hotel is gangster Johnny Rocco (Edward G Robinson) who was deported from America but has returned. His cronies hold them all hostage as he is working on a deal with other gangsters regarding some counterfeit money.Frank recognises for Rocco of who he is. Despite Rocco telling everyone that they will be unharmed as long as they do what he says and he will leave the hotel once his business has concluded. James and Nora antagonise him which leads Rocco to show his menacing side.It really is a question of if and when Frank would be able to stand up to Rocco and his men. He had one opportunity but spurned it leading people to think he is a coward but Frank might be biding his time for the right moment.Robinson delivers a malevolent performance, Bogart gives the impression he only cares about his own self preservation but the audience senses otherwise. It is a tense film but it gets grating to see the Temples constantly putting themselves in danger by insulting Rocco and his men when they are in no position to defend themselves.

While other reviewers found this film to be "claustrophobic", I never shared that impression, thanks mostly to the opening, aerial shots of the bus on the Overseas Highway, the snappy script by director John Huston and Richard Brooks, and the stellar performances of most of the cast, including Edward G. Robinson, Humphrey Bogart, Lionel Barrymore, Claire Trevor, and Thomas Gomez. I would add Lauren Bacall to that list were it not for her subdued, lethargic character who closely scrutinized the commanding officer of her deceased husband at every opportunity from start to finish. I much preferred her as Irene Jansen in the grossly under-rated "Dark Passage", my favorite Bogart-Bacall film among the series of four.Disillusioned as a drifter after World War II, Frank McCloud (Bogart) visits the Florida Keys hotel belonging to the wheelchair bound father (Barrymore) of his Army buddy and subordinate. At the "historic" hotel, he not only finds a very lonely Nora Temple (Bacall), the widow of the same fellow warrior, but a bunch of nasty, despicable criminals, led by notorious gangster Johnny Rocco (Robinson). Having taken over the establishment, they hold the father and his daughter-in-law hostage. He also meets Rocco's washed up, alcoholic but fair-minded moll (Trevor in an Oscar winning role), a couple of brothers from a local Seminole tribe on the run from the law, and a powerful hurricane on rapid approach. When the skipper of the hoodlums' boat decides to evacuate secretly, the thugs decide that only McCloud, an experienced seaman, has the ability to ferry them to their destination in Havana. After McCloud foregoes one opportunity to kill the detestable Rocco at the hotel, will he waive a second chance against enormous odds as he stands alone and outnumbered among the gang far out at sea?And what was Johnny Rocco repeatedly whispering in the ear of Nora Temple that revolted her so? As viewers, we can only imagine the extent of his depravity. Mr. Barrymorel, with intense loathing and contempt, describes Johnny best. "You filth!"

John Huston's 'Key Largo' is set in a Post World War II America and the film is unapologetic about showcasing the pessimism that had enveloped America and Americans after the war. It's about the loss of a self-respecting identity. This is epitomised by the character of Frank McCloud played by Humphrey Bogart. This is not a very characteristic role for Bogart. McCloud is a war veteran who has now become a homeless drifter due to his lack of interest in a settled life. He is a sane version of Travis Bickle, he might have been a vibrant, hopeful man in his pre-service days, but after coming back from the war and watching an America that has further collapsed into corruption, mob activity and evil, he has slipped into a state of depression and deliberate indifference. Bogart gives a subdued performance with moments of tenderness reminiscent of the tenderness of Rick Blaine in 'Casablanca'. But McCloud also shows signs of selfishness and cowardly reluctance which are a consequence of his pessimism towards life after war. There is an ambiguity to his character that makes him interesting.Lauren Bacall doesn't give us the quintessential 'Lauren Bacall' performance either. Instead of being the 'Femme fatale' with the seductive allure and the sharp tongue, her character Nora is a sweet, kind-hearted widow taking care of her father-in-law. There are genuinely sweet and charming moments between Bogart and Bacall. Nora's presence and her innocent sweetness has an undeniable effect on McCloud which makes him reconsider his moral stance and contemplate the idea doing something instead of continuing his reluctance about standing up to the gangsters.Edward G. Robinson is a dynamite in every scene he is in. Johnny Rocco oozes charisma and a sense of control. It takes a lot to be in the same scene with Bogart and go toe to toe with him in terms of exuding authoritativeness, but Robinson does it effortlessly.Although Huston doesn't use too many attention seeking shots or too much fancy camera work, one can easily see the noir-ish elements in the lighting and prominent shadows in the film. There are some carefully used tracking shots and extreme close-ups for artistic purposes that work perfectly and the film on Blu-Ray looks very pleasing to the eye. Huston's biggest achievement is maintaining a tone of suspense throughout the running time. The staging of 90 percent of the film in the confines of the interiors of Hotel Largo adds to the claustrophobia which the viewer feels along with McCloud, Nora and Temple. The only flaw is that the shootout scenes are very clumsily directed and almost look comical now after all these years.'Key Largo' is thematically a film which wrestles the idea of whether someone should or shouldn't give a damn even if he/she feels an assertive action doesn't mean much in the bigger picture. A thematically potent core along with good direction and acting make 'Key Largo' an easy recommendation.

Released in 1948, John Huston's "Key Largo" is a Post-War movie. Obviously. In this suffocating behind-closed-doors thriller, the moral relics of the War sweats out the characters' pores, with the obligatory evil : Johnny Rocco, played by an exquisitely confident Edward G. Robinson, and a self-doubting good side incarnated by a former WW2 veteran: Bogart as Frank McCloud, Lionel Barrymore as the father of his ill-fated Army buddy George, and as Nora, the precocious widow, Lauren Bacall in her fourth and final co-starring with her legendary husband.Swinging between, there's Oscar-winning Clair Trevor as Rocco's moll, Gaye Dawn, desperately seeking for a last drop of alcohol, how much she drinks says a lot about the wounded past she has to conceal, something Frank, the only one to give him a drink, can relate to. A former idealist probably, Frank had to fight with the assurance that his death would have a meaning: clearing the world of its poisoning vileness and barbarity. Yet Rocco stands for everything Frank fought against and is very much alive and cynically proud of his achievement.Men like Rocco highlight the pointlessness of George's death and that's what the Film-Noir genre is about, disillusion, the same after the victory's euphoria was toned down by the uncertainty of the world's fate, at the dawn of the Atomic Age. Who could put his faith in human nature after that? "Key Largo" is one of the most quintessential film-noir. War is the prominent shadow of Frank's past and the light of hope is this visit to Florida, an escape from the pessimism inherited from the past and the certitude that George's death was the ransom for a better world, seeking the real Post-war peace, peace of mind, but the light at the end of the tunnel might be of a passing train, a train named Johnny Rocco who'd confront Frank to the very demons he's escaping from.And in the pivotal moment when Rocco dared Frank to shoot him, Frank chose to drop his gun. There would be plenty of Roccos to take his place anyway, like the War didn't deprive the world from scum or evil. For long as there will be men, there will be wicked ones, so why should the good ones die to leave room for them? That dilemma is perfectly captured by Gaye Dawn's line "Better to live a coward or die a hero", which in Frank's mind resonates as, "calculated weakness can be more resourceful than pointless bravery". There's no point in heroism if it's deemed to fail, it's as meaningless as being called a coward.If not a hero, Frank is an existential character, because his life is worthier than his cause, if only to better serve the cause. It's not the action that counts, it's the one you do according to your personal beliefs. Basically, Frank's self-preservation commanded him not to waste his life for Rocco or for the sake of peer pressure. And who could ever think of him as a coward? Whether for giving a drink, taking a few slaps (and what slaps!) and shielding Nora, Frank never acted brave, he was brave ... something he might've learned from the War, like Patton said "you don't win a war by dying for a country, but by making the other bastard die".George might've been a hero, but it was Frank smelling Florida coolest breezes and toying with Nora's beautiful hair. Life isn't an act, it's reality and reality commands to accept some bits of failure, the quintessential Hustonian theme. All Huston movies are about characters who try to escape from their inner condition but fail because they're essentially tragic. Rocco's success was Frank's failure, the living incarnation of his bitterness and anger toward the world. But being a failure is one thing but no Hustonian character is a loser, the relative quietness of Frank is only the silence before the storm, after the real one would be over.Indeed, Frank knew that he had to fight no matter what, postponing the time of the confrontation wouldn't avoid it and it's only after Rocco kills the innocent Indians (Sawyer took a chance and wasn't a 'civilian') that Frank makes up his mind. He knows killing Rocco won't change anything, but not killing him would leave a much more indelible stain in his soul. He had to act, that was his destiny as a fighter, a soldier, a man of morality who wouldn't let the killing of the two innocents get unpunished. An existential character gives a meaning to his acts, but paradoxically, believes that he's got but one destiny. He chooses what to do but most times, there's only one thing to do.And the climax conveys the fascinating paradox. Frank, now dispassionate, cold and methodical, eliminates the bad guys one by one, killing the last demon who'd ever have to torture his soul. This is the light of excitement that ignite Bogie's eyes while staring at that door from the boat's rooftop before Rocco would show his face for a last time. He knows he's going to accomplish himself once and for all and really escape from his tormented past. Escapism is another symbolic device in Huston's oeuvre, full of people trying to transcend their own condition yet their quest for freedom or success lead them to a physical or moral entrapment.There's something of Fred C. Dobbs in Frank McCloud, something of The "Night of the Iguana" in "Key Largo", people isolated and entrapped to give the word 'escape' its fullest meaning. Frank wouldn't find peace in Florida but also the peace of this soul. A hurricane is ravaging the outside, but the climate is even more dangerous in the inside. It's escapism as the quest for any trapped soul and entrapment for any soul trying to escape its condition, you've got to earn it, whether you lose or fail. "Key Largo" was Frank's key to his own salvation.