Originally written March 31, 2012
Heavily revised September 2, 2020
I have never heard of On the Waterfront prior to my Cinema Appreciation class in college, and I’m surprised I didn’t. After all, the lead role is Marlon Brando, who is pretty famous (especially for The Godfather). But regardless, I knew nothing about the movie, and ended up being blown away by it. I just rewatched it for the first time since I saw it eight years ago, and I think I’m even more impressed by it now than I was back then.
In the movie, Marlon Brando plays the character of Terry Malloy, a man that used to be a boxer, but is now working as a longshoreman. The waterfront that he works at is controlled by a group of corrupt union mob bosses, and one day Terry realizes that they had him help commit a murder. Terry’s conscience begins to weigh on him as the film goes on, until he eventually decides enough is enough, and he’s ready to stand up to the mobsters. The plot isn’t always the most interesting, but it’s interesting enough to carry the movie along.
Easily the best thing about On the Waterfront, and the reason that I feel like it’s stayed on many “top movies of all time” lists, is Marlon Brando’s performance. I read many quotes from actors such as Jack Nicholson and Benedict Cumberbatch that praise Brando’s performance, and it’s easy to see why. Up until this point in film, a lot of acting was melodramatic and overly exaggerated. There are exceptions, of course, but Brando gave a more realistic, grounded performance here, and I think it solidified what acting could be. If there’s any one reason to watch On the Waterfront, it’s that.
I also just want to give a shout out to the climax of the movie. Like I said earlier, it had been eight years since I last saw this movie, and honestly I didn’t remember much about the movie. The two things I did remember were Brando’s performance and the climax/ending. For a movie where the actual plot is one of my least favorite things about it, it really ramps up at the end, and it’s just exhilarating to see Terry confront the mobsters.
When reviewing older movies, I often like to make sure I talk about their accessibility to modern audiences. I will admit here that while I love On the Waterfront, it’s more from a film appreciation perspective, rather than a simple entertainment one. So, if you’re more of a casual movie viewer, this one might be hard for you to sit through. On my most recent viewing I watched it with my girlfriend, and she didn’t like it. I think the movie is phenomenal, but this is coming from someone that really likes the craft of filmmaking itself. So, anyone that’s serious about their love of film owes it to themselves to watch this, but casual viewers probably won’t be that into it.
4.5/5
AUTHOR’s NOTE: I wrote a review for this movie when I first saw it in 2012, but when I dug it up to repost it after re-watching the movie this past week, I thought it was terribly written. So I heavily “revised” the review to the point where this is basically a new review of the movie. There are still some parts of it retained from my original review, but I couldn’t in good conscience repost the old review in its untouched form.
