I Am a Criminal

In the opening scene, the District Attorney is chewing out Brad McArthur (John Carroll) and he swears he'll one day jail the guy. It seems that Brad owns a legal gambling joint but it has a seedy reputation. Well, only a short time later, a nasty drunk is in the joint and he is making a fuss. Brad comes out to see what the disturbance is and suddenly the guy lunges at Brad and he flies out a window! This is pretty silly, as you cannot imagine a huge open window this easy to fall out of...whether you're drunk or sober. What also seems odd is that almost immediately Brad's lawyer tells him he's likely to be arrested. since the now dead man is a judge's son..even though there are many witnesses there that clearly saw that Brad did nothing wrong...and he was trying to de-escalate the situation.

The lawyer decides their best course is to rehabilitate Brad's image. Part of this completely cynical program will include Brad adopting a cute kid...and he plans on giving it back to the orphanage as soon as the case is settled. Fortunately, the orphanage refuses to give him a child....so the lawyer decides to find a needy child on his own. Soon, he's found a kid living on the street and Bobby is paid to become Brad's ward. What's next? See the film.

I think the death of the judge's son should have been handled better in order for there to be serious doubt about Brad's innocence. Simply having no witnesses or an unreliable one would have solved that. This is a serious hole in the story.

So how is it otherwise? Well, it is predictable--as my wife told me towards the end exactly what was going to happen...and she was right. It also is HIGHLY flawed at the end...with a very vague ending that surely won't satisfy most audiences. But it's still a pleasant and diverting time-passer on balance.