Spencer Tracy Drives Through the Grime in Big City

Is it worth your time?

If you like watching Spencer Tracy play a guy who is perpetually tired but somehow always the toughest person in the room, then yeah, put this on. It’s a scrappy little movie. If you need your crime dramas to be slick, fast, or particularly smart, you’re probably gonna roll your eyes at how quickly things get resolved in the final act.

Tracy plays a cabbie, and honestly, he makes the whole thing worth watching just by the way he holds a steering wheel. He looks like he’s actually spent ten hours in traffic. There's a scene near the middle where he's just sitting there, not saying a word, and you can tell he's already over the whole day. It’s those tiny, quiet moments that keep you anchored when the plot starts getting a little thin.

The corruption angle is standard fare, really. You’ve got your bad guys in suits, you’ve got the honest working man, and you’ve got a whole lot of shouting in courtrooms. It reminded me a bit of the frantic energy in Happiness C.O.D., though with a lot more pavement and a lot less patience.

The bits that stuck with me

• Tracy’s fedora. I don’t know why, but it looks like he’s been wearing it for five years straight.
• The street scenes feel crowded in a way that modern movies can't seem to replicate. You can practically smell the exhaust and the hot asphalt.
• There’s a fight sequence that’s just clumsy enough to feel real. Nobody is doing fancy martial arts here; they’re just swinging wild and hoping to connect.
• The dialogue gets a little too "noble" at times. Sometimes I just want the guy to swear instead of giving a speech about the American dream.

It’s not perfect. The pacing stutters every time the script tries to force a moral lesson down your throat. It feels like the director was worried we wouldn't get the point, so they made sure someone said it out loud every twenty minutes. A bit exhausting, really. I found myself wishing they’d just cut to the chase and let the cab ride through the rain for a few more minutes instead.

If you’re looking for a comparison, this definitely isn't the sweeping epic you’d find in something like Les Aventures de Robinson Crusoé. It’s smaller. It’s dirtier. It’s just a Tuesday in the city, provided that Tuesday involves a mob brawl. 🚕

There's a weird rhythm to how the extras move in the background. Sometimes they just stop and watch the camera, which is super distracting once you notice it. Maybe they were just waiting for lunch. Who knows.

At the end of the day, it’s a fine way to spend an hour and change. Don't expect to have your life changed, but you might appreciate the way the lights hit the wet streets in the night shots. It's got that nice, moody vibe that makes you want to turn the collar of your coat up. Not a masterpiece, but it’s got heart. Sometimes that’s enough.