Busting (1974)

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Directed by Peter Hyams, Busting apparently inspired the television show Starsky & Hutch. It was released at a similar time as Freebie and the Bean which was commercially more successful but Busting is more tighter, coherent and cynical picture that still retains elements of its comedy.Keneely (Elliott Gould) tall, laconic and chews gum all the time and Farrel (Robert Blake) shorter and tougher are two LA vice cops who spend most of their time arresting hookers and people in gay bars rather than than the big crime lords who they feel are being protected by their superior officers and cynical lawyers.They decide to go all out to catch the local crime lord Rizzo (Allen Garfield) which annoys their superiors who prefer they go after the small fry.The film has a comedic and anarchic tone but beneath the cynicism it also has a heart of two cops trying to do the right thing and not happy with just fitting up hookers and their clients.There are thrills as well with well staged shootout sequences in a market and later in a hospital. The film is a softer and sarcastic edged version of The French Connection featuring elements of a buddy cop duo and a message that crime does pay.

Gee… doesn't the 70s have some cracking crime thrillers… some of these even fall in the cracks, which this one undeservedly does and in which case I would put it down as one of the best the decade had to offer. Writer / director Peter Hyams' debut feature "Busting" is an excellently pitched comedy thriller with outstanding performances by Elliott Gould and Robert Blake as two Los Angeles vice squad officers Michael Keneely and Patrick Farrel who rage a war against a well-respected crime kingpin Carl Rizzo (Allen Garfield), but also find themselves fighting corruption inside the force for their constant harassing of Rizzo. There they decide if it means doing things outside the book, well they'll do it to get their man.The surefooted plot might seem dated and rather routine (frustrated cops battling criminals and the law, in which they feel like they are fighting a lost cause), but the innovative script is constantly witty / stinging in its observations (that especially goes for its downbeat, but ironic conclusion) and the chemistry between Gould and Blake simply ignites. The narrative seems to be strung together by sporadic plot threads, but there's a certain awkwardness to its cynical approach that just makes it so odd. The interchanges between the two cops and also with Garfield are bitingly dry, but enjoyably so. While there's a playful tongue-in-cheek style, it can be exhaustingly aggressive (you know the brutality featuring red paint) and edgy. Hyams skilfully stages the lean action with gritty, but frenetic authenticity as the bombastic score kicks in. Watch how the camera-work always instinctively moves around, like it has a mind of its own by following the action with numerous tracking shots. Just look at the relentlessly thrilling market store shootout / chase. Earl Rath does a hypnotic job behind the camera. Hyams keeps it snappy and makes great use of the grungy urban setting and seedy strips that really do bring the film to life. The cast are fantastic in their roles. Garfield reeks of confidence and the support features the likes of William Sylvester, Logan Ramsey, Michael Learner, Antonio Fargas, Corbelia Sharpe and the dominating Sid Haig as Rizzo's bouncer."Gotta stay alive man. Gotta stay alive."

"Busting" is a satire disguised as a hard-boiled thriller that depicts the daily miseries and frustrations of L.A. Vice Squad police officers Keneely (Elliot Gould) and Farrel (Robert Blake) deprived of a social life--see the apartment and the dry living condition of Keneely--and a decent salary that makes arrogant "nouveau riche" big shot Rizzo (Allen Garfield) laugh at (to avenge, they burn Rizzo's fancy car during his birthday party in a grand restaurant), hence both Vice Squad cops' rage and anger to catch him in the act and send him to jail. Keneely and Farrel are sick and tired of the absurdity of their job that lead them to a dead-end: their superiors are corrupted (see the intercourse with their chief in a dark office). Both cops curse to unwind and are obliged to transgress the law to enforce it and they foresee a character as Travis Bickle from "Taxi Driver". The moral of the film is that society is rotten in all directions and at every levels. The film offers a desperate sarcastic tone with some flourished language (see the juicy dialogs). The look is gritty, realistic, raw, naturalistic. Thanks to director Peter Hyams, it features a great pace and contains solid action scenes (among other things: the supermarket's gunfight, the ambulance chase) that give it a documentary stamp. Besides, composer Billy Goldenberg's colorful and distorted score (with echo a la Miles Davis' "Bitches Brew") perfectly fits the style of the story: streetwise, suspense-laden, terse, low-key, hectic, funky, furious, chaotic and slick. It is a pessimistic painting of the urban society, full of freaks and danger: a masseuse from a sex-shop, a nude dancer from a sex nigh-club, fags and drags from a private bar, call-girls and hookers, pimps, hustlers, thugs, gangsters, hired-killers, liberal lawyers that defend criminals, crooked officials of the State. And the worst thing, you burst to laugh at this terrible vision. The ending encapsulates the plight of Keneely who announces his job's change throughout a freeze frame of his face. In today's mentality, this film can be classified as politically incorrect because of the "direct" language and the depicted methods. I file "Busting" with the top 1970's cop and robber films: "Dirty Harry", "Magnum Force", "The Getaway", "The French Connection", "The Seven-Ups", "Charley Varrick", "The Taking of Pelham One, Two, Three".

I caught part of this 1973 flick one late night on TNT. I was intrigued because it was supposed to be Peter Hyams' first theatrical effort. So I went out and bought a copy on VHS. At first this film may not seem much. Just an updated version of the old police procedurals from the 1940s and 50s. But after a couple more viewings I was hooked. There's a certain indescribable quality to it (see Walter Hill's "The Driver" and you'll know what I mean). A hang-dog, left coast version of the French Connection. Very laid back, but deadly serious. The viewer feels the same frustrations the Gould-Blake teams feels in the up-hill struggle to rid their beat of society's scum. The duo risks life, limb, and personal and professional humiliation trying to nail the vile crime boss and galvanize indifferent peers/supervisors. Brisk dialogue, thoughtful direction, excellent photography by Earl Rath, sleazy LA locales and a fine cast make this forgotten film a winner. Give it a try!