Intuition

The end of "Touch of Evil", seems to undue a lot of the evil characteristics that were equated with Captain Quinlan. Throughout the entire film it is excruciatingly obvious that Quinlan is very racist and perhaps this has to do with the murder of his wife by a Mexican, but in the end although he is seen throughout the movie as falsely accusing Manolo of the murder of his wife's father; he is correct at then end. His intuition about the guilty party is correct almost in a redeeming sense. Almost undoing the evil nature of this character that we have been constantly presented with. Vargas is continually seen as this ultimate figure of justice that goes against the evil Quinlan, but the end he is partly responsible for the death of a man that was right all along and although he has evidence to prove that Quinlan framed Manolo this evidence is practically nullified because of the fact that Manolo confessed and was proven guilty for the murder. Making all of Vargas' attempts to clear him and to find the truth seemingly worthless. His intuition compared to that of Quinlan is therefore portrayed as essentially inferior because he seems to rule out the Manolo as a suspect in comparison to Quinlan who had a strong intuition of his guilty, but no evidence to back it up. In the end we are presented with a representation of a Mexican who did not accomplish much in terms of capturing the real criminal that he was supposed, and is partially responsible for the death of an Anglo cop, whose methods are indeed corrupt but in the end he "was right all along."