Bitter ex-cop Tim Foster (expertly played with consummate steely resolve by Preston Foster) is still fuming about his forced early retirement, so he decides to get his revenge by devising a fiendishly clever perfect caper. Foster forces three despicable low-life hoodlums -- jittery compulsive gambler Pete Harris (lanky Jack Elam), sleazy womanizing heel Tony Romano (snaky Lee Van Cleef) and surly gum-chewing brute Boyd Kane (burly Neville Brand) -- to pull off a bold $1,200,000 bank heist. Foster cruelly sets up rugged, resourceful and resilient innocent ex-con Joe Rolfe (a strong and sympathetic performance by John Payne) as a fall guy in a wicked ploy to buy time to successfully escape the country with the hot loot. After he gets sprung from jail due to lack of evidence, Joe puts himself in considerable jeopardy by obsessively tracking down Foster and his pernicious flunkies in order to clear his name.<br /><br />Phil Karlson's sharp, assured and stylish direction, working from a smart, complex and absorbing script by George Bruce and Harry Essex, further aided by George E. Diskant's stark, shadowy black and white photography and Paul Santell's brooding, moody, rousing score, skillfully crafts a diabolically arresting and hard-boiled little nugget of a gritty crime noir thriller: the brisk pace never lets up for a minute, the nerve-wracking suspense is well-maintained from start to finish, the tone is suitably grim and serious, and the tense, bleak, seedy and sinister atmosphere seethes with danger and corruption. The film's principal winning hand is the truly inspired and on the money casting of resolutely scrappy and unglamorous character actors Elam, Brand and Van Cleef as three of the foulest, meanest, ugliest and most menacing no-account criminal scum to ever scowl, growl and glower their way across the screen; Brand and Van Cleef in particular make for a fabulously nasty and odious pair of scary customers. Colleen Gray adds substantial spunky charm and vigor as a feisty aspiring lady lawyer who befriends Joe. Slightly marred by a rather sappy conclusion, "Kansas City Confidential" overall still rates highly as the authentic gnarly noir article.