Sorry, this movie sucks

I'll tell you why so serious

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Director Don Siegels editorial chops are well in evidence as he opens The Line-Up with a brilliantly montaged chaotic scene at the San Francisco Pier. Well paced with two quirky villains the film is a sleek stripped down cops and robbers that purrs smoothly with a chilling violence from start to finish.Out of towner thugs Julian (Robert Keith) and Dancer (Eli Wallach arrive in San Francisco to collect a shipment of heroin from various unsuspecting sources. Things get ugly with the volatile Dancer during transfers and murder ensues. More complications ensue when they cannot account for the entire shipment.The Line-Up is an impressive piece of film craftsmanship by Director Don Siegel. Making the most of the San Francisco backdrop he covers a lot of ground in no nonsense detail with the twisted Julian and psycho Dancer as our tour guides to the famous city as well as cold blooded mayhem. Keith and in particular Wallach effectively convey their warped take on life in economical terms with few words that allows the chase to maintain its healthy stride. Building his story to a fevered pitch through judicious editing he saves the best for last in this film where the pace never wavers and done brilliantly in under 90 minutes compared to revered hacks like Mann and Tarantino who cannot get it right in over two hours. Along with his Body Snatchers a masterwork of minimalist film making.

This unspectacular cops and robbers chase through the streets of San Francisco sees the City's Finest hot (actually more lukewarm) on the trail of a network of heroin traffickers, finally cornering them on the unfinished Embarcadero Freeway, still under construction in 1958. To its credit the film (based on an early television series) neatly incorporates several Bay Area locations into the plot, but the style is as dated as the gray hats and suits worn by the uncharismatic paragons of law and order in their unblinking pursuit of evidence. The villains, thankfully, are given more attention, making an attractive assortment of psychopaths and social misfits.

Dark crime drama about heroine smuggling into the US from China that shows the gritty streets of San Francisco in a different light than normal. It appears that unsuspecting passengers have stashes of heroine placed in the nicknack's they have purchased abroad, and hoodlums such as Eli Wallach and Robert Keith are sent out to retrieve them. One such person is a toupee-less Raymond Bailey ("The Beverly Hillbillies") who dominates much of the first half of the film as a possible suspect in the heroine ring. Another attempts blackmail and is murdered in a sauna; A manservant refuses to allow the gangsters to take the package (to apparently switch it with another package) and looses his life. Finally, a single mother and their daughter are victimized by the gangsters and end up in terror as the gangsters ride them all over SF and the general area (including a newly built freeway) after the little girl uses the powder hidden inside her porcelain doll on its face.There are some really graphic violent scenes. The set-up for the shooting in the sauna is really suspenseful. Robert Keith is cast against type, and in one scene gives an interesting assessment of the gangster's life compared to normal people's life towards the single mom. Eli Wallach is excellent as the most dangerous of the drug ring. When he is told by the boss of the heroine ring he is dead, his reaction is priceless, leading to one of the best shots of violence since "Kiss of Death's" notorious old lady on the staircase sequence. Later, there is another graphic demise in which the viewer cannot help twitch in agony over the psychological feelings of pain.I thought that the use of the single mother and young daughter was well handled; It could have been done with more manipulation by the kid being too cutesy pie, but that doesn't happen here. The writers do a good job in preventing those segments from being too cloying.Columbia's Film Noirs tended to be more violent than others, especially as the cycle of that genre began to cool off in the mid-late 50's. Along with "The Garment Jungle" and the later "Experiment in Terror", "The Lineup" has a realistic horror to it that would later be used in many classic crime shows of the 60's and '70's. However, I didn't find that the title was appropriate for the film; Other than one scene of the line-up of ship's porters in the beginning, it had nothing to do with police line-ups. "Heroine Smuggling" would have been a more appropriate title, although that might sound more exploitive than mainstream.

The first half of this very realistic and gripping crime film is very good. However, this is a case where a film keeps getting better and better--culminating in an exciting and rather violent conclusion. And, while this film isn't exactly "Film Noir" in every way, it has many Noir sensibilities that will no doubt please fans of the genre.The film stars Eli Wallach, though interestingly enough he doesn't even appear in the film for about the first 15 minutes. Instead, the film begins with a robbery gone bad in which, inexplicably, a tourist's luggage is stolen and the getaway car runs into a truck and kills a cop! The crime is so violent and senseless--until the police understand the real reason why they needed the suitcase. It turns out that tourists are unknowingly transporting souvenirs that are actually filled with heroin--and the mob will stop at nothing to get the drugs back--and I mean NOTHING! Wallach's job in the film is to retrieve these drugs and for a rather ordinary looking guy, he was amazingly cold and violent. He has no problem at all killing these tourists and ultimately he takes a mother and daughter hostage because they have inadvertently destroyed the heroin hidden in a doll. Instead of killing them, he takes them prisoner because he wants to prove to his superiors that he is not trying to cheat them. However, despite this, they don't believe him--leading to one of the more violent and amazing confrontations I have ever seen on film. I made my jaw drop--as did the very end as well. For a 1950s film, it was super-violent and highly reminiscent of Noir.Speaking of Noir, as I said this film had many of the usual Noir elements. However, its dialog was much more polished and less gritty than Noir and the lighting and camera angles were too normal and polished (like a TV episode) to be considered Noir by many fans. Still, despite me being a huge fan of the genre, I really didn't mind as the film was still a thrilling and taut suspense film.A highly underrated and under-appreciated little film that deserves to be seen.