This doesn’t match the slam-bang power of the best Warner Brothers crime movies of the time, but James Cagney saves it. He crackles even when William Keighley’s workmanlike direction doesn’t. He’s so naturally dominant that it’s hard to imagine him playing a submissive character. Even a cornball script can’t stifle his energy. Cagney makes watchable this labored celebration of the FBI. It’s a film that plays counter to the great gangster-glorifying films of the early 1930s by showcasing the good guys this time. Cagney is one of the 
FBI’s newest recruits and a sincere force for justice, but he once socialized with some real creeps in his younger days. However, that only makes him better at his job when his first assignment is to take down a few public enemies whom he happens to know personally. Tommy guns roar, gangsters glare and Cagney sweet talks both the lovely Ann Dvorak and the lovely Margaret Lindsay along the way. This is also the first film appearance from Lloyd Nolan, who’d go on to a fifty-year career as a busy character-actor.