Southside 1-1000

Unpolished, formulaic and lacking in depth... but has a lot of cheapo charm to it. There's some wonderful little details and it just FEELS right. When you love a genre, sometimes it's the not-so-great movies that really do it for you. The only truly subpar aspect of this feature is the often hokey narration, and I've heard worse. The performances, dialogue, plotting, photography, music, and uses of locations all have some bright spots. Not among the finest noir, but for a fan it hits the spot.

Got most of the ingredients for a solid crime bust, but I struggled a little bit getting fully engaged with the thrills of this one. Perhaps lacking a focused identity, but it wasn't from the lack of trying.

That endless intro is awful but after that it's pretty good. It's neatly split into two halves, the first a rather straight story full of voiceover about following the trail and an informant, the second about an undercoverman trying to seal a deal. They're both good solid pieces with a fine performance from Don DeFore, but the second is the more interesting one. It brings out the danger and tension and has all of the films great moments.