This crime drama with smidgens of elements of film noir in it starts off as a view of the training that motorcycle policemen go through before being sent out onto the road. That takes up almost half of the film's very short running time, and by the time the rookie (Ralph Meeker) is on the road, he's only got one crime here to deal with, that of the capture of a gang of smugglers who killed another rookie and left him dead in the middle of the highway.
For the first half, exposition is the theme, and you get lots of training footage and arguments between Meeker and one of his trainers (Keenan Wynn, who also narrates). Once the plot thickens, then the action really occurs, the murder of the cop actually pretty brutal and the discovery of who is behind it very clever. The conclusion is also very graphic, involving a tub of lye that threatens to instantly dissolve whatever lands in it. For that, the film is worth putting up with the slow first half, which makes it seem as if this was intended as the start of a "B" series which never took off.
For the first half, exposition is the theme, and you get lots of training footage and arguments between Meeker and one of his trainers (Keenan Wynn, who also narrates). Once the plot thickens, then the action really occurs, the murder of the cop actually pretty brutal and the discovery of who is behind it very clever. The conclusion is also very graphic, involving a tub of lye that threatens to instantly dissolve whatever lands in it. For that, the film is worth putting up with the slow first half, which makes it seem as if this was intended as the start of a "B" series which never took off.