On The Waterfront

"Everything I heard about Marlon Brando was true" that was the first impression I had while watching this movie, of course everyone knows about his classic performances, especially as Vito Corleone, in "The Godfather", but this is a young brando, and frankly this man was an acting Mozart since the beginning, but that was only part of the brilliance of this movie.

Terry Malloy (Brando) is a dockworker on the docks of New Jersey, he is funny and simple minded and gets along well with the local mob connected union and it's boss Johnny Friendly (Lee Cobb) since his brother Charlie is Friendly's lawyer, one night he even helps Johhny's men to ambush another dockworker, who accepted to testify before the authorities on the crimianl activites around the docks, and who ends up flying off the roof, Terry has resentments about his involvment, but the whole docks operate under the D&D (deaf and dumb) the local brand of Omerta, which suits Friendly's opressors very well, since they are the ones who control who works and who does not

But the murdered dockworker has a lovely sister Edie (Eva Marie Saint) who seeks the truth and justice against those who killed her brother, she first shames the local church's priest (Carl Malden) to set a resistance to the injustice happening on the docks, which lead her to meet Terry and to slowly fall in love with him and trying to convince him to be a better men (the thing women always try and fail to do)

The violence escalades when other people willing to testify receive more and more opression from Friendly's men, Malloy doesn't want to get involved, he has a simple life he likes, raises pigeons on the roof, and has to remain loyal to his brother, but when this very loyalty is compromised, things get serious very fast, and the former contender in Terry who was forced to make a life changing decision to make Johnny a little richer wakes up, and the conforontation must occur, between the opressors and the opressed.

First of all this movie has very high human messages, about the opressed, the simple workers, and about becoming a better version of oneself, when the right motivation comes in, a bum can become a contender, and when the opressed have a leader who accepts to submit violence on therir behalf, they shall be free, It is very messianic in essence, when you put it in context this movie was made in the context of the House Un-American Activites Comittee, or better known as McCarthysm, and the movie's director was interrogated by the comitte and allegedly "named names", so maybe it was also his personal redemption, a director naming names can make a movie like that.

The other high point is Brando's superiour brand of acting, you see the famous "method acting" in practice in here, It is a great performance, he carries the weight of the whole movie on his shoulders and gets away with it brillantly and with an Oscar, with the movie winning a total of eight oscars, the directing was superiour, the supporting acting very good, and the movie was shot on location anyways on New Jersey's docks which adds a great authenticity to the whole thing

Everybody should watch this, for all the reasons mentioned above, and also for one of the most famous quotes in movie history "You don't understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody instead of a bum, which is what I am." .