The Brothers Rico (1957)
Coming in at the arse end of the Film Noir era The Brothers Rico thankfully maintains the high standards of so many films of this period.
Richard Conte is superb as the former accountant for the mob who sadly takes his former crime syndicate associates as friends and their boss a father figure rather than the unscrupulous criminals they really are when Conte's brothers, also part of the syndicate, fall foul of them.
It's only when Conte becomes disillusioned and suspicious of why he is being asked to find his brothers does he work out exactly what he's doing - Finding them so the syndicate can kill them - that he begins to work out a way of stopping them.
There's some pretty strong violence in this for the fifties. One man is beaten to a bloody pulp whilst Conte quite clearly shoots a man at point blank range in the head.
Unlike so many Noir films this mainly takes place in the bright Miami sunshine before moving on to Arizona then New York yet it works well. At times i was wishing this was actually in colour to take advantage of the sunny climes.
Whilst not as twist laden as some The Brothers Rico is still a fine example of Film Noir.
As with Pushover (above) this was another first time viewing and was taken from the Indicator Film Noir Collection Vol 4 and looks superb.
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