Other than SLAP SHOT/’77, his Let-It-All-Hang-Out, feel-good, middle-age breakthru, Paul Newman was drawing blanks in the late ‘70s: two high-visibility flops for Robert Altman and a deeply embarrassing second-drawer Irwin Allen disaster pic. So this straightforward cop meller came at just the right time, setting up Newman’s impressive late-career run even if it felt more like a pilot for some tv series than a stand-alone movie.* More character study then police procedural, Daniel Petrie’s faceless direction, working hand-in-glove with John Alcott’s grubby South Bronx location lensing, is better at interpersonal relationships than action. The dramatic motor is Pam Grier’s cop-killing, drug-addled prostitute, but the main interest follows Newman and partner Ken Wahl (the handsomest pair of cops ever to share a patrol car) thru girlfriends & station-house loyalties as Edward Asner’s precinct commander is transferred in with a ‘new broom’ approach to corruption & SNAFU practices. The film cops outs at the end with a big explanation/apologia from Asner and a freeze-frame back-in-action shot of Newman, pretty phony stuff. Elsewise worth a look for tasty acting, time-capsule attitudes and vivid locations.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Sure enough, about eight months after this opened, HILL ST. BLUES debuted on NBC, with many similar ensemble cop shows to follow.
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Someone should reboot GOING IN STYLE (that senior citizen bank robbery tale recently remade with Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine & Alan Arkin in roles first handled by George Burns, Art Carney & Lee Strasberg) as a tv series for reclusive cult-actors Richard Dean Anderson (MacGyver), Jan-Michael Vincent (Airwolf) and this film’s Ken Wahl (Wiseguy).
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