This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

This is a surprisingly disappointing film for being a hardboiled noir about ruthless gangsters and established corruption. The leading gangster is Robert Ryan, who definitely dwarfs the quiet but pertinacious leading policeman Robert Mitchum, who is more calculating and subtle and therefore wins, while Robert Ryan is carried off guard by his own roughness. Ryan dominates the acting, though. But the one person who makes the film interesting at all is Lizabeth Scott with her suave voice and shifting standing, leaving you wondering where she really is, until she is forced by circumstances to land on one side. There is a great finale at the police station, which doesn't save the film from regular mediocrity. Only Lizabeth Scott makes it a little more than that.

The governor's crime commission fears a large criminal syndicate is moving into the city. The criminals are trying to elect Welsh as their own county judge. They recruit local gangster Nick Scanlon (Robert Ryan) but he's uncertain of their all-encompassing political ways. Corrupted officials are pushing the incorruptible police Captain Thomas McQuigg (Robert Mitchum) to the sideline. Then there is the nightclub singer Irene Hayes (Lizabeth Scott).This should be a great hardcore crime noir. It has Mitchum. The story is simple good cop against bad criminals. It falters with the flat uninspired story. It should have started with Mitchum right off the bat. I have nothing against Ryan and his shaving scene is fun. There is nothing that memorable and Mitchum is wasted in the effort. His presence is still powerful enough to drive this crime action movie forward but this is definitely not upper level stuff.

Robert Ryan made a career of playing against type. Off-screen, he was a warm-hearted, intelligent man who fought against injustice and campaigned for civil rights. In character, he frequently played sardonic, sadistic villains. Maybe being 6"4" with the swagger of the ex-Marine and college boxer he'd been, coupled with a face of chiseled granite, contributed. And he was never more entertainingly sociopathic than as Nick Scanlon in "The Racket." A loose cannon mobster allied with a national crime syndicate, he refuses to cool his natural taste for violence to protect his associates' political power plays. His adversary and ex-childhood pal is staunchly honest cop Robert Mitchum. Together, they strike sparks in what has been incorrectly described as a "noir" film. It's more of a tough, smart gangster movie. There are stand-outs throughout, led by Ray Collins' sweaty, corrupt DA and Don Porter's smooth syndicate "front." But it's Ryan who ambles off with the acting honors.

"The Racket" (1951) is directed by... well, quite a few different pairs of hands actually. John Cromwell gets the credit, but he had uncredited directing help from Nicholas Ray and Mel Ferrer. It's hardly surprising actually when you look at who owned RKO when the film was made. None other than Howard Hughes, who had a panache for taking directors off movies at the drop of the hat. In fact, "Vendetta" from 1950, went through six directors! This constant reshuffling in the director's chair probably accounts for the differing feel to the picture. The beginning, quite bland and unmemorable mutates into a very good middle section before ending predictably. It would be interesting to see who did what on the motion picture.The screenplay is by William Wister Haines and W.R. Burnett (author of "Little Caesar"), and based on a play of the same name by Bartlett Cormack, which was also the basis for the 1928 film "The Racket", directed by Lewis Milestone. It is about McQuigg (Robert Mitchum), the only honest police captain on the force, and his loyal patrolman, Johnson (William Talman). Together, they take on the violent Nick Scanlon (Robert Ryan), who is backed by The Syndicate. Together, they plan to elect Welch (Ray Collins), the crooked prosecutor running for judge.Mitchum and Ryan are very good, as usual, but there is certainly an added intensity when they share the screen, and Lizabeth Scott, Ray Collins and William Conrad all contribute, good solid performances. The photography, by George E. Diskant, is very nice indeed, full of shadows and darkness. In fact, with a slightly less routing screenplay and just one director, this could have turned out to be something special. Still, as it is, it is good enough and a lot better than its reputation.