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Thursday, November 21, 2019

SHARKEY'S MACHINE (1981)

Still a major star, but off his ‘70s peak, this Burt Reynolds cop drama was designed as a prestige project, a reunion with DELIVERANCE director John Boorman.*  But when work on EXCALIBUR made Boorman pass, Reynolds took over, putting out a well-made, but standard cop thriller. Not a whodunit, we know the murderer right away, the twist comes in who got it, with the big reveal lifted straight out of LAURA/’44. Oddly, everything works better before that big twist, starting with Burt’s busted bust operation and his quick demotion from glamorous Narcotics to grungy Vice. That’s where he collects his motley crew of cops in crummy suits to run a stake-out of Rachel Ward’s high class call girl. Under the protection of Vittorio Gassman’s bigtime City Boss, she’s diddling a Gubernatorial candidate, unaware that Burt & company are watching her every move. But they’re not the only high-rise voyeurs, Gassman’s private hitman Henry Silva has a similar lookout. Someone is going down. But who? Good fun as Burt puts his motley cop machine together; such a tasty bunch of characters: Charles Durning, Brian Keith, Bernie Casey, Richard Libertini. But a distinct lack of chemistry between Ward & Reynolds starves the romance while Burt’s action staging never makes the leap from competence to flair. Still, more watchable than Reynolds’ ‘Good Ol’ Boy’ pics of the period or his attempts at artistic stretching.

DOUBLE-BILL: As mentioned above, Otto Preminger’s ultra-smooth LAURA with its gorgeous cast, Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Vincent Price, Judith Anderson, ‘newcomer’ Clifton Webb, and David Raskin’s swooning theme music.  OR: *To get an idea of what Boorman might have done here, see his early game-changing action/revenge thriller POINT BLANK/’67.

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