New York Confidential wants to be a better film than it is, and while watching it, the viewer spends the first twenty or so minutes expecting it to catch fire and take off. Unfortunately, it never does, hemmed in by a screenplay that sets up so many restrictions that it can't find a way to break free. On this surface, this would seem to be a good thing for a film which, after all, deals with the stifling, dangerous intractability of the crime world and how it inevitably leads to death and destruction. But in practice, it works against the film, removing interest and appeal. It doesn't help that there are no characters to root for, or even to care about. All are unappealing people who become tiresome to spend time with. Again, this could be exploited to the film's gain, but it would take a more skillful team than Russell Rouse and Clarence Greene to do this. The work is at least schematically skillful, with one part leading carefully into the next; but even this structural nicety ends up tiring after a while. The cast can't be faulted, with Broderick Crawford, Richard Conte, Marilyn Maxwell and especially a young Anne Bancroft all turning in good work. The cast makes it watchable, but it's a shame it isn't as good as it could have been.