IMDb #178 Review: Touch of Evil (1958)

Source: Wikipedia

After the most splendid tracking shot in cinema history, a rich couple's car goes kablooey on the US-Mexico border. This kicks off an international investigation packed with more crime and drama and backstabbing than the crime that started it all.

Two butthead cops, naturally, butt heads.

Orson Welles plays the gruff, tough, cigar-chomping celebrity detective who relies on hunches. Charlton Heston, meanwhile, carries on the grand movie tradition of beefy white Americans failing to impersonate foreigners. He's *allegedly* a mustachioed Mexican cop named Vargas, on honeymoon with his full-blooded blonde American wife.

This casting transgression is the only funny part in the movie, so treasure it.

As I'm-Totally-A-Mexican sinks deeper into his work, he deposits his lovely lady at a sketchy resort motel in the pristine wasteland. Which, surprise, belongs to the local mobsters totally not responsible for the bombing. Never mind the nitwit running the front desk. Cue the kidnappers.

Meanwhile, the buttheads chase the case. Dynamite missing from a construction site? Evidence mysterious manifests in the prime suspect's personal effects. Fat-Dumb-American accuses So-Fake-Mexican of protecting his fellow countryman. Fake-Mexican accuses Fat-American of planting evidence. Not a recipe for success, just headaches. So many headaches that the ex-boozer Welles turns into an ex-ex-boozer.

Crippled by this infighting, the sloppiest joint investigation in history deteriorates further. Fake-Mexican is understandably distracted by his missing wife, once he finally realizes she's missing.

Ultimately, it's the classic contrast between the by-the-book cop and the one who gets his hands dirty. (Not always mutually exclusive categories.) But with the car bomb, the break for work, kidnapping, international squabbles, and the ugly morally-complex solution, we have yet another contender for the shittiest honeymoon ever.

112 minutes.