An action-packed slog

Absolutely Fantastic

Go in cold, and you're likely to emerge with your blood boiling. This has to be seen to be believed.

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Rogue Cop is a movie about sin, redemption and forgiveness. The story is told through the life of Det. Sgt. Chris Kelvaney (Robert Taylor), a crooked cop. Kelvaney is living high off his contacts in the underworld, dressing beautifully and throwing money around as no honest cop could. He has a younger brother Eddie (Steve Forrest), a uniformed cop on the beat. One night Eddie sees a murderer escaping from the crime scene and subsequently identifies the crook from mug shots.The murderer, it seems, has friends in high (or low) places in the underworld, Beaumont (George Raft) and Ackerman (Robert F. Simon). They tell Chris to call off Eddie unless he wants his brother killed. Eddie, being a straight arrow, refuses to cooperate and suffers the consequences. The rest of the movie concerns Chris Kelvaney's quest to avenge his brother while avoiding disgrace from his superiors.Chris Kelvaney is played by Robert Taylor in an Oscar worthy performance as a man who is, at first, satisfied with himself but who comes to realize what a mess he's made of things. Gradually he becomes disgusted with himself and begins to understand that he needs forgiveness for his past. Taylor is utterly convincing in the role, first as the self-satisfied crook and later as the devastated man looking to make amends by turning informer and closing down Raft's crime empire.Steve Forrest's role is underwritten but he makes the best of it. Unusually for a gangster film, Rogue Cop has two female characters who actually do something. Janet Leigh is Karen, a former mobster's moll whose escape from the world of crime inspires Chris. There is a wonderful scene where Chris is bullying Karen to get her to help his brother. He grabs her roughly and kisses her. She resists and then gradually responds to the kiss. Leigh's face eloquently portrays the change. Anne Francis plays Beaumont's drunken mistress Nancy. Kelvaney is the only person who treats her kindly when her paramour throws her out. His gentleness is a step on his way to redemption.Robert Ellenstein is especially good as an honest cop who turns on Kelvaney for his dishonesty then supports him at the end. A wounded and possibly dying Kelvaney asks him for forgiveness but the reply is ambiguous.Rogue Cop's John F. Seitz was nominated for a best black and white cinematography Oscar for 1954. The movie was based on a novel of the same name by mystery writer and screen writer William P. McGivern.

Cop-on-the-take Sgt Chris Kelvaney(Robert Taylor)vows to take down the two mob bosses, Dan Beaumonte(George Raft) & Ackerman(Robert F Simon) responsible for the death of his straight-arrow beat cop brother Eddie(Steve Forrest). The drama starts when a lowlife named 'Wrinkles' Fallon(Peter Brocco)kills a man in this gaming place. The man responsible for placing the ID on Fallon was Eddie who would receive a commendation for his work in bringing a killer to justice. But, Fallon is a photographer/blackmailer who captured Beaumonte and Ackerman snuffing someone out and he needs to be freed from jail or they take the fall. Beaumonte puts pressure on Chris to convince Eddie it's best not to keep his story on Fallon legit or else. But, Eddie is an honest product of his pop's raising and will not follow in his crooked brother's footsteps. Chris finds out that Eddie's new squeeze Karen(Janet Leigh)was once a mobster's moll from Florida and tries to convince her to talk sense into him against remaining loyal to keeping Fallon in prison. With Beaumonte and Ackerman squirmy and nervous about being taken down, they bring a foreign hit-man in to put away Eddie. Beaumonte has a lovely alcoholic moll Nancy(Anne Francis)who embarrasses him with her stumbling around and little jokes and cans her out on the street to another gangster for which she opens her mouth about certain things she knows..Beaumonte now sets his sights on wringing her neck as well. Through it all, Chris will go rogue as his own as his superiors will desire his badge and resignation for his being under the mob's payroll, but not before he finds the man responsible for Eddie's death. He plans to not only take out the hit-man, but the two mob bosses as well in a climactic shootout with assistance of good cop Sidney(Robert Ellenstein)who feels resentment from the sergeant for not going the crooked route.Taylor gets a really juicy role as a crooked cop certainly a bit responsible for his brother's death. He has to face the music when it comes to his activities with the mob and this film puts it to him, but Taylor is good at getting sympathy from the viewer despite his nose-thumbing at being the honest, hard-working cop instead of getting paid, no matter who is forking over the extra salary lining your pockets. George Raft also is quite effective as a real scumbag mobster who says what he means, to the point with little in the way of small talk. Janet Leigh doesn't have to stretch too much..it's her looks this film is aiming for..that and to poke away at Chris' heart. She's the one who he can speak to as the world caves in around him..when both the police and the mob turn their cold shoulders to him. Sure, it's of his own making, but that's what makes the role so juicy for Taylor..it's not black & white at all, but all sorts of shades of grey. The film is ultimately about redemption, setting things straight, and accepting the life you've lived with all the problems that capsize because of it. Anne Francis gets one of her best roles as a moll who genuinely loved her man and seems damned for pushing him too far.

Robert Taylor was a wonderful choice for this film about a crooked cop, who likes the high life and has little respect for his honest colleagues. What would eventually stop Chris Kelvaney (Taylor), would be the death of his brother Eddie played by Steve Forrest. He was an honest cop and crosses the mob by identifying a killer, they are tied to by blackmail. This is the part of a lifetime for Taylor as he walks with the dirt and corruption of the mob boss, George Raft. Raft is icy, his black eyes never showing any emotion until he dumps his girl (Anne Francis) of Honey West fame, and sends her to the gutter "giving" her to his friends. Janet Leigh does a nice job as Eddie's reluctant girl, not knowing if she loves him, and when she is confronted by Chris about her shady past with the mob, falls apart. Taylor is trying to make her help him save Eddie, telling her he will spill the beans about her back- ground. She refuses and he roughs her up, ending the confrontation by kissing her, and after she somewhat submits to the embrace, he tells her she is no better than he. Robert Ellenstein is Kelvaney's partner, and is sick of the "take," but in the end helps Chris get the killers. This film is a favorite of the NYPD along with another Taylor film "Johnny Eager." Taylor's performance as "Johnny Eager" was superb, but I think this mature role with Taylor fighting, snarling, and just in general being disgusted with everything out shines even that much ignored Oscar caliber performance of 1942. Great noir, for all those crime film fans. 2008 By the way, if you watch closely, the scene in the brothers house, the photo on the mantle is really Taylor's baby picture with his mother holding him and his father kneeling next to her. I have watched this film dozens of times and never noticed it till today.

By 1954, the noir cycle had already sounded most of its dissonant themes. Audiences had seen the crooked cop with the straight-arrow younger brother (The Man Who Cheated Himself); the shantoozie with a past (Gilda, Dead Reckoning, The Last Crooked Mile); the slick mobster beyond the reach of the law with his alcoholic, trophy mistress (Key Largo, Railroaded,The Big Heat); the street-savvy old jane who passes on scuttlebutt for a price (Pickup on South Street). But, as Roy Rowland's Rogue Cop demonstrates, there were still changes to be rung on those themes, jazzed up with fresh casting and pithy writing.Here, the cop gone sour isn't a homicidal brute like Edmond O'Brien in the same year's Shield For Murder (both movies were adapted from books by William McGivern, as was Fritz Lang's The Big Heat). He's dapper, laid-back Robert Taylor, known by his `brothers' on the force to be on the take but given a wide berth despite it (it's the thin blue line's equivalent of omertà). When his younger brother Steve Forrest, also a policeman, identifies a connected hit-man, Taylor receives a summons from his paymaster, crime boss George Raft. Either Forrest recants his testimony, in return for a $15-grand payoff, or he'll be killed (the accused knows too much and might sing if convicted). Upon delivering the ultimatum, Taylor gets rebuffed by Forrest; he then tries to blackmail his brother's fiancée Janet Leigh, a nightclub singer, into trying to change his mind. Taylor doesn't really want Forrest to go bad, he just doesn't want him dead.But Raft plays tougher than Taylor imagines. Lulling Taylor into thinking he still has time, Raft has Forrest shot in the back. And so the worm turns: Using both Leigh and Raft's discarded moll Anne Francis as his allies, Taylor swears vengeance....Crisply photographed by John Seitz, Rogue Cop burrows snugly into its rotten urban core – a city of dreadful night. With its large and aptly chosen cast, it nonetheless rests squarely on the shoulders of its central character, Taylor, who comes through with the performance of his career. At age 42, he passes muster as a burnt-out cop who's sold out for easy money – in this urban jungle, corruption is just another perk passed up only by fools -- but still has the wits and the will to spring a few surprises when cornered. There's plenty of brutal, even sadistic, action, but Rogue Cop is less an action picture than a character study that Taylor, somewhat surprisingly, manages to pull off. With its siblings The Big Heat and Shield For Murder, Rogue Cop makes up a grim tryptich of big-town America in the mid-20th century.