Act of Violence

DVD review from The Movie Snob

Act of Violence (C). Again acting on the advice of Entertainment Weekly, I picked up this box set of DVDs called "Film Noir Classic Collection Vol. 4." I'm not even that into film noir, but because EW gave it an A-, here I am. Plus, it was like $45 for 10 movies, so I figured, "Why not?" Anyhoo, the first one I watched was "Act of Violence," a film from the late 1940's. A World War II veteran is settling nicely into life in a small California town, with a pretty young wife (Janet Leigh, Psycho) and new baby. But then a menacing stranger shows up looking for him, and he pretty much goes to pieces over a dark secret in his service record. To what lengths will he go to protect his family and keep the secret buried? Not bad, and nicely short at 82 minutes.