You don’t rob Henshaw’s casino and think he’s going to sit back and take it. He’s ordered The Beefshank, done to perfection. This particular cut of meat is adept at finding people. The thieves who knocked off the safe are about to find that out in spectacular fashion. So have a listen to the exciting conclusion of Will Benson’s crime fiction tale Swimming!

And after the story, we’re chalking up our pool cues and talking about a true classic, The Hustler. A young Paul Newman, well before his salad dressing days, stars as the uber-confident, always grinning Fast Eddie Felson. He’s out to take the mantle of best pool player in the country from Jackie Gleason’s Minnesota Fats. Gleason of course turns in the performance of his career, sporting his most beloved catchphrase, “One of these days Fast Eddie, to the moon!”

The casino heist is a go. Has she conned him into it, or is he the final cog needed for an intricate theft they can only pull off in tandem? Find out in part two of our crime fiction tale, Swimming.

Then we’re talking about the funniest, and most fun, of the 90’s erotic neo-noir thrillers, The Last Seduction. Linda Fiorentino is a singular force of will, confidence, and sexuality in director John Dahl’s classic portrayal of the most dangerous of femme fatales. Bill Pullman, Peter Berg, and Bill Nunn co-star as the helpless flies caught up in Fiorentino’s web of deceit. 

A sultry Las Vegas pit boss spies an opportunity at her private game when a handsome high roller dominates the table. Can she tempt him into helping her pull off a lo-fi, high-stakes robbery of the casino? Take a listen to Part 01 of Will Benson’s original crime fiction story Swimming to find out.

And after the story we’re talking about the Coen Brothers’ classic, Fargo. Oh yeah, you betcha! Will and Chris get to the bottom of this Minnesota fable featuring Frances McDormand’s Oscar winning turn as a police chief tracking the woefully incompetent crook William H. Macy. And there’s plenty to be said about the talkative Steve Buscemi, the taciturn Peter Stormare, and of course, the woodchipper.

Tighten your belts and pull on your suspenders listeners, we're talking “Ace in the Hole”! Kirk Douglas dives face first into his wholly unsympathetic turn as an unscrupulous reporter in director Billy Wilder’s classic, sunbaked noir.

An infamous flop in 1951, time has allowed audiences to realize the brilliance of this critique of American life and the media. Nary an asphalt jungle or shadow laden alleyway are to be found, but this one’s as mean and cynical as film noir movies get. So hop on the ferris wheel of this big carnival as we celebrate one of our favorites in the genre!

Rocky. Rambo. Sheriff Freddy Heflin. If you haven’t seen Sylvester Stallone’s turn as the sheriff of Garrison, NJ, then do yourself a favor and have a listen. Cop Land is the movie where Sly shows off his incredible and subdued acting chops, and it is a pleasure to talk about his character work opposite one of the greatest assembled casts of the 1990’s: Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel, Ray Liotta, Robert Patrick, Annabella Sciorra, Cathy Moriarty, Michael Rapaport, Janeane Garofalo, Peter Berg, Method Man, Frank Vincent, John Spencer, Eddie Falco, & oh my goodness we can go on!

And we do! Because director James Mangold put together a cop drama with a dash of police corruption, a sprinkling of noir, and a tablespoon of Western. The concoction that results is the strongest movie in Stallone’s filmography since the original Rocky and First Blood. Take a listen, or else, as De Niro says, “You blew it!”

This episode we want our podcast in a thin glass. That’s right, we’re talking about the classic British crime film ‘Get Carter’ starring Michael Caine. Plus, we dive deep into the fantastic book it was based on, the criminally underrated ‘Jack’s Return Home’ by Ted Lewis. And to keep things thorough (and fun!) we touch on the Sylvester Stallone remake from the year 2000 as well as the 70’s blaxploitation version ‘Hit Man’ starring Bernie Casey and Pam Grier.

A man awakens from an all-nighter to find himself held captive on a beach, imprisoned in a strange apparatus that spreads him out like da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man. Who trapped him there, and why? As he struggles to understand, he must fight to free himself before the elements take hold: the scorching sun, angry gulls, the rising tide, and his own ebbing sanity.

No one knows how it’s goin down, except for maybe Jackie Brown… and Crime Is Up Podcast! We’re talking about Quentin Tarantino’s 3rd film, which simultaneously gives Pam Grier & Robert Forster their due in one of the most honest love stories of the 90’s. That’s not to say there isn’t violence, there is. And there’s blood and swearing and criminals doing nefarious things. But at its heart, this is a romance.

And it’s unique in Tarantino’s filmography because it’s his only adaptation. So we examine how and why Tarantino decided to follow up the mega hit of Pulp Fiction with this faithful adaptation of Elmore Leonard’s novel Rum Punch. We’ve got plenty to say about the book itself, as well as the incredibly stacked cast of the movie: Samuel L. Jackson, Robert De Niro, Bridget Fonda, Chris Tucker & Michael Keaton!

Whose car we gonna take? We’re hopping in with Director Ben Affleck who’s behind the wheel of the best bank robbery movie since Heat! Episode 19 brings us to The Town with its kinetic action and killer cast starring Rebecca Hall, Blake Lively, Jon Hamm, Chris Cooper, and Oscar-Nominated Jeremy Renner.

Plus we'll be talking about the Chuck Hogan book that it’s based on, Prince of Thieves. Both works claim there are more bank robbers that hail from Charlestown, MA than anywhere else. How true is that today? Chris peppers in some perspective from his family that live in Charlestown to see. Take a listen to find out!

This episode, we’re on the lam with Humphrey Bogart and Harrison Ford! We’ve got a deep dive into the Bogie led film noir Dark Passage and the 90’s classic The Fugitive. What made us want to pair these two movies together? Because it could be that they were both based on the same source material, the book by pulp writer extraordinaire David Goodis!

Goodis famously sued the producers of The Fugitive TV show for copyright infringement. Did he have a case? Have a listen to find out! Court cases aside, Dark Passage is a fun movie to talk about, with its first person POV camera inviting you to make eye contact with the always elegant and captivating Lauren Bacall. Plus, we’ll detail the unrelenting chase through every henhouse, outhouse, and doghouse that Tommy Lee Jones undertakes as he pursues Harrison Ford and winds up finding an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

“Baby, I don’t care.” With that dialogue, Robert Mitchum makes the hard-boiled heart of this film noir classic beat like brass knuckles on a bass drum. This episode we take great pleasure in talking about Mitchum sporting that trenchcoat and fedora, smoking all the cigarettes in the shadows as he faces off against Kirk Douglas’s smiling menace and Jane Greer’s murky motivations in Jacques Tourneur’s outstanding movie ‘Out of the Past’.

What are we prepared to do? Give you a whole episode devoted to The Untouchables, that’s what! We’re doing things the Chicago way and talking all about Sir Sean Connery in his Oscar winning turn as the honest cop helping Kevin Costner’s Eliot Ness tackle Robert De Niro’s Al Capone in Brian De Palma’s classic (and altogether historically inaccurate) gangster flick.