YMMV / The Enforcer (1951)

• Complete Monster:
  • Albert Mendoza, based equal parts on real gangsters Lepke Buchalter and Albert Anastasia, is the one behind the film's nefarious Murder, Inc. ring. Mendoza pitched the idea to his future enforcer Joseph Rico after personally murdering an innocent man in a restaurant as a demonstration, and subsequently spent years forging a criminal empire over a mountain of bodies. Mendoza is responsible for the death of dozens and an entire swamp clogged with corpses, whether they're hits commissioned by anonymous customers, or witnesses—including several of his own lackeys—who know too much.
  • Joseph Rico is Mendoza's right-hand man, who personally oversees all of the murders that Mendoza contracts out. Rico runs a tight ship, hiring goons to carry out contract killings while abusing or even murdering any of them who slip up. In one case, Rico murders a friend he's known since high school just for getting shaken up at the sight of a murder. When one of his thugs falls in love with a target, Rico forces the man to kill the woman against his will; in another case, Rico threatens a barber into helping set up the death of a longtime friend. After the countless bodies left behind by their organization are found, Rico sets up 3 of his allies to die and tries to rat out Mendoza to save his own skin.

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