Belated Movie Reviews

Kirk Douglas stars in Detective Story (1951), a sordid, even noirish slice-of-life story centered on a day at the 21st police precinct of New York City.  Various petty and not-so-petty characters wander on and off the stage, exhibiting motivations obscure and troubling, while Douglas struggles with a rigid, unforgiving, and ultimately unrealistic moral code which drives him and his wife to the edge of destruction, and then tumbles them over the railing in a welter of awkward knees and elbows.  Well-acted, well-paced, with a denouement ultimately depressing and accepting, it brings to mind questions of purpose vs fufillment, contrasting character motivations which leaves one wondering.