Terry Malloy [Marlon Brando] works for Mob boss Johnny Friendly. Terry’s not a smart guy but he is a good guy. After watching Friendly’s henchmen finish off a guy who didn’t deserve it, he starts wondering if he really belongs in that mess. The media and police are after Terry, they know he doesn’t have the smarts and won’t be able to pretend nothing happened, but he does have muscle.
Edie and Father Barry are trying to recruit people to try and get Friendly out of their sight and all the trouble he brings along gone. The good people who work the docks down in New Jersey are terrified of Friendly and his men and they play deaf and dumb to whatever goes on. Terry all in all is very confused about what to do, Friendly took him in when he was just a kid but now he’s just pushed around to do errands and play bait. He falls for Edie, who’s brother was the last guy he unwillingly pushed into Friendly’s grip and he’d do anything to help her. Edie just wants justice, she wants Friendly and his men to rot in jail, but after all the pushing Terry’s been through, he doesn’t act anything other than violent. He can either kill Friendly and rot in jail or testify against him in a court of law and hopefully win the case against him.
Terry knows he’s worth more than what he is, that he deserves more, he could have had a better life, he could have “been a contender.” Poor guy grew up around violence and doesn’t have the brains to see what’s right in front of him.
This is a very dramatic and emotional movie, set in the 50s with black and white. The directing is beautiful because you get this sort of real emotion, time and real people feel. Our eyes are open to so much humiliation, bullying, lying and blood and confusion. The fact that it is based on some true facts and articles just astounds me, they did a great job of letting the feel of it leak through this film.
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