Tuesday, August 10, 2021

Key Largo

 *Spoiler alert.

An idyllic break far off in southern Florida, with fish to catch and an ocean to sit by things seem like they couldn't be better.

The bar is stocked, his hosts eager to see him, for he brings sought after news (Humphrey Bogart as Frank McCloud), of a son and a husband's final days in combat, they can rest easy, peace reassured. 

The hotel they've owned for quite some time has several additional guests, however, who have paid handsomely to be left alone and are none too fond of visitors.

Initial contact is rather abrupt the antagonism slowly but surely increasing, it's readily apparent that something disquieting has callously called and rascally roosted.

They were just hoping to quietly reside while they made their lucrative deal, having left the bright lights behind and travelled there by boat.

A hurricane approaches and the law keeps stopping by, in search of two escaped convicts who may be innocent of any crime.

Those visiting, those renting, those fleeing, those having lived there for many a year (Lauren Bacall as Nora Temple and Lionel Barrymore as James Temple), find themselves at the mercy of concurrent clashes socioculturally and torrentially bound.

The menace invariably metastasizes as Johnny Rocco (Edward G. Robinson) malevolently emerges, with enough time to exchange bits and pieces of fascinating troubled grandiose discord.

McCloud courageously counters with peaceful dreams inspired by World War II victory, Rocco testing his mettle forthwith, there's little McCloud can do in the foreboding fray.

Key Largo may be somewhat too blunt for fans of The Maltese Falcon, as the bellicose lack of subterfuge leaves little room for mystery.

If searching for frank exclamations boldly jettisoned with antiquated daring, Largo may prove rather sporting, nevertheless, if not too headstrong or overpowering.

Still saturated with humble belief multilaterally composed, competing psychological imaginations excavated from the same cultural bedrock.

A chaotic lament for guiltless freedom still wildly critiquing ethics duty bound, as dreams of a world reborn come to terms with extant realities.

Indigenous characters suffer in the background for they can't enter during the storm, and two of them are shot having done no wrong having taken refuge in a reputed sanctuary.

Duty does win out in the end and bucolic romance is bravely restored.

Not without having been assailed.

Competing beliefs, convergent ideologies. 

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