Disappointment for a huge fan!

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

***SPOILERS*** Frank Sinatra plays the about to put in his papers and retire NYPD Sergeant Edward X Delaney who's obsessed in finding this ice pick killer who's terrorizing the city of New York. The fact that Sgt. Delaney's wife Barbara , Faye Dunaway, is in critical condition and on life support because of a blotched kidney operation doesn't make his task any more easier. It doesn't take long to see who this crazed ice pick wielding psycho is since we see him Daniel Blank, David Dukes, as soon as the film starts as he ice picks to death a total stranger who passes him in the street.It's Sgt. Delaney who later notices a pattern in a number of murders over the last three yeas in the city that fit the same MO or description and realizes they, the victims, were that of the very same killer.Meanwhil back in the hospital emergency ward Sgt. Delaney's wife Barbara is fighting for her life as her husband seems to be spending far more time looking for Daniel Blanks then with her when in the critical condition that she's in she needed him most. The film centers around the killer's weapon of choice to do in his victims a mountain climbing ice pick that he brains and murderers his victims with. It's in discovering that the killer has mountain climbing experience that narrows down the search in finding him. Sgt. Delaney finally tracks down "Dandy Dan" Danny Blank at his high rise apartment on Manhattan's Upper East Side and plans to arrest him but has no real concrete evidence to do it or make his arrest stick. Bending the law a bit to say the least Sgt. Delaney ends up breaking it to bring Daniel Blank to justice. And it's the fact that Sgt. Delaney worked on this case alone with no one in the NYPD to see what he did and turn him in he ended up getting away with it.***SPOILERS*** Despite his success in offing the ice pick serial killer in the end Sgt. Delaney ended up losing the person who meant most to him his wife Barbara who died from complications from the blotch operation that was preformed on her. A more mild and mellower Frank Sinatra did make the movie interesting then it would have been in playing his age,65, and not trying to be at least 20 years younger in the role he had. As for Faye Dunaway all she did during the entire movie was go in and out of consciousness and try to look pretty, but as white as a sheet, during the entire time she was on camera. As for David Dukes as the zombie like serial killer Daniel Blank his name, Blank, fit the role he had in his zombie like actions through the entire movie. The biggest surprise is in the end when he finally opened his mouth and told the reason for his murderous actions which made as much sense as the cannibalistic and real life serial killer Jeffery Dhamer reasons for murdering his victims did.

Sinatra financed this movie and starred in it, so he is wholly responsible for it, and it shows just what a ghastly gangster-fascist he really was, because --- as no one on this board appears to have even noticed --- it wholly endorses police murder.With the notoriously whitewashed De Menezes and Dziezinski police killings, plus scores of taser deaths, fresh in our minds, we should be calling for this film to be withdrawn from circulation, including from lending libraries. What validity is there in a film that shows its hero taking a death sentence into his own hands, and executing a villain with impunity? Sinatra is supposed to be an Irish detective-sergeant nearing his retirement when serial killings occur. Perhaps the Irish theme explains the prominent Catholic crucifixes on display in various scenes. Or perhaps they are just proto-fascist totems for the vigilante faithful.This film not only endorses repellent values, it is utterly idiotic, with Sinatra conducting a series of interviews to arrive at the screamingly obvious fact that the crimes were committed with an ice-pick. The blindingly blatant ID of the weapon takes him several days, and involves an improbable character undertaking part of the investigation on his behalf. Ridiculous! In an unrelated series of scenes Faye Dunaway, his much-younger wife, is expiring from complications arising from a kidney removal. This gives Frank ample room to display his inability to act, which we have to add to his inability to judge a script or to embrace civilised values.When he summarily executes the killer, this moronic cop (who took a week to identify an ice-pick), transgresses all police regulations, civil and moral law, but all he has to do is turn in his badge and he walks free.An utterly contemptible monument to a disgusting man and the hideously violent and sociopathic circles he moved in. Avoid completely.

MAY CONTAIN MINOR SPOILERS I rate this film 7 out of 10 mainly for the strength of Frank Sinatra's performance.He plays a retiring police detective, whose wife has fallen ill and is slowly dying in the hospital. Seeking to distract himself from his personal troubles, he becomes deeply involved in trying to solve a series of murders and stop the killer.The story is based on a novel by Lawrence Sanders, who wrote a series of "Deadly Sin" mysteries. It provided Sinatra with his final starring role in a film, and he plays it well. As the worn-out aging cop, he is effective and moving in several scenes. Unfortunately, the movie doesn't play fair with its audience regarding the killer and it never reaches the tension necessary to be more interesting as a thriller. Thankfully, Sinatra is in nearly every scene and has some nice interactions with supporting players like James Whitmore, Brenda Vaccaro and Martin Gabel.It's David Dukes' killer that we never really get to know. He's alternately bold and weak, and we are never given any insight into why. In a more exciting thriller, we might overlook that flaw, but here it makes the chase a little less interesting. However, as I said, the Sinatra scenes are plenty and they are well-done. For example, there's a nice scene where he buys ten minutes to snoop around an apartment to look for clues. And the scenes with Whitmore's coroner and Gabel's curator are nicely played.Had the makers of the film, which include executive producer Sinatra, been more in-tuned to the serial-killer aspect, they may have balanced out the film a bit more. Also, Faye Dunaway is wasted in her role as the dying wife. She's fine acting her scenes, but has so little to work with that she's almost non-existent. Some complain about the down-beat ending, but I feel that it fits well in the context of the film. As it is, "First Deadly Sin" represents a solid, yet somber, final star vehicle for Frank Sinatra.

I am a huge fan of Lawrence Sanders, who wrote "The First Deadly Sin," and I finally came upon the DVD, and was excited to buy it. To me the novel gives equal time to Delaney and Daniel Blank (hey, what a name for the killer), but this film focuses on Delaney and his problems.I envisioned an actor like Brian Dennehey playing Edward Delaney, a big man with a good heart, very intuitive, and with a big appetite for all kinds of weird sandwiches and always some good beer, not someone like Sinatra, a rather small man.Sanders is a brilliant writer of weird characters, and Daniel Blank was one of his best. Yet the whole film seems to focus on Delaney and the dying wife.I would have much liked to have seen the killer portrayed as he was in the book - a man with a good job, a very strange girlfriend, and brilliant in a horrible type of way.And so slow moving! Lesson learned, never see a movie after you've read the book.