Horribly unimpressive and unoriginal gangster film. It's amazing that this movie is often put in the same class as William Wellman's Public Enemy. Like all gangster pics of the time, they both cover the rise and fall of some criminal tough guy. Aside from that, however, the two films could not be more opposite. Wellman's picture was a gritty, artistic masterpiece, while this clunker is nothing more than a stock gangster film with barely a good quality to speak of. The writing is horrible, the acting is worse, and it seems like director Mervyn LeRoy wasn't even trying. It's hard to hate iconic star, Edward G. Robinson, as the title character, even if he does overact his way through every scene. It's easy to hate everything else, though.