I knew Phil Karlson from the '70s grindhouse movie Walking Tall, but until I saw The Phenix City Story a few years ago (at the suggestion of Martin Scorsese, somewhere) I didn't realize the high caliber of artist I was dealing with. Phenix is a classic of '50s angst, and for good reason considered a must-see. Kansas City Story, although more typical, is also more exciting and perhaps just as good.
Each of the three films deal with a corrupted system and one person fighting to cleanse it. Kansas City Confidential is different from the others in that while their protagonists wage war out of the goodness of their hearts and their commitment to their communities, the main man here is out for revenge because he almost got screwed. This gives the film a more classically noir perspective, and although it's partly the lack of those kind of tropes that makes Phenix unique, the drive it gives the (anti)hero is welcome here. We still have greed spread through every rotting bone of America's justice apparatus. We have shades of gray within each character. And we have a protagonist who, although resourceful, is not as smart as he thinks he is. The surprisingly frank portrayal of the corrupt and brutal police here demonstrates truth to the cliché that lower budget movies could "sneak" things past the censors that would never be allowed in a major film; despite which there is the obligatory happy ending, although it doesn't seem too tacked-on. A young, lizardlike Lee Van Cleef is a cherry on top.
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