If film noir is the genre of dark, brooding obsession, then Joseph H. Lewis' The Big Combo reigns supreme on a throne of reheated coffee, cigarette smoke, cheap perfume, and lifeless bodies. At the center of the film is Police Lt. Leonard Diamond's rabid determination to bring down notorious gangster Mr. Brown. He makes no secret of his personal crusade against the sadistic gangster, confronting him several times. As a result, almost everyone he touches in the course of the investigation gets either murdered or psychologically shattered by Mr. Brown. Blind to his contribution to the case's ever-increasing body count, Diamond lunges forward on his personal vendetta. But what drives him? Is it his sense of justice? Or perhaps it's Susan, Mr. Brown's suicidal squeeze that Diamond can't get off his mind? Whatever the reason, Diamond uses her as just another pawn in his strategy to take down Mr. Brown. And therein lays the inherent tragedy and twisted irony of the film: both men, Lt. Diamond and Mr. Brown, see others as disposable tools in their fight against each other. One justifies his actions with a badge, the other with his gun and his terrible, terrible smile.
9/10
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