CommentsXp Best movie ever!

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

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Rosie Searle It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

amosduncan_2000 Coming off their career high hit "The Longest Yard" Reynolds and Aldrich tried a highly stylized LA thriller. That was all She wrote for Roburt" productions. Even at a very young age I took a look at the reviews this film got and wassurprised how easy the critics went on it. Mostly it was ignored and allowed to die. Aldrich has done good work ("Flight of The Phenix" is among my favorite movies) but he is so out of his element trying to be stylish here. His efforts come off asa tasteless slob trying to be classy. Steve Shagen was slightly hot at the time, with his turgid "Save The Tiger" beingtaken seriously in some quarters. But Aldrich should have known this script neededsome serious work or better yet, should have been thrown out all together. The Dirty Harry/Death Wish element ( A double murderer somehow is let outout of jail for good behavior, you know, just like real life) is perhaps the worstbit of audience pandering. Then there is a consenting adults rape that probably wouldn't go over today. Visually ugly, terribly edited ( a sign of desperation and bad audience testing, the film still has a train wreck sort of quality, we all becomebad cinema lookie lous. A great partnership of Burt and Bob was notto be. Also, when something this cynical is this unconvincing, the resultis oddly upbeat.

cultfilmfreaksdotcom One of those "stick with it" kind of movies. After the success of the universally entertaining THE LONGEST YARD, director Robert Aldrich reteams with Burt Reynolds in a steamy/gritty cop melodrama that takes a little while to get going.Reynolds is Phil Gaines, a bitter, worldweary detective who, living with a high priced prostitute, doesn't live the typical law and order existence. After the dead body of a drugged young girl turns up on the beach, Gaines and his partner, Paul Winfield's Belgrave, write it off as suicide. But a stubborn, unglued war veteran father, played with a frantic energy by Ben Johnson as Marty, can't let go.Overlong scenes where Burt and hooker girlfriend Nicole – played by Catherine Deneuve – involved in tedious bouts of pillow talk (especially during the first ten minutes) distract from the real stuff: Gaines and Belgrave forced to take the investigation seriously as Marty (the father) sneaks around a local mob-run strip club for answers, stalking a seedy high profile lawyer played by YARD villain Eddie Albert.Essential action scenes are thrown in whenever necessary, and yet beneath the surface is character-study of a cop discovering the truth of a victim who, having been involved in stripping and hardcore porn, wasn't very innocent to begin with. Conversations where Reynolds and Winfield discuss the validity of the case and the futility of life, while delving into pop culture movies and music, are the highlight.A clean-shaven Reynolds, a few years shy of the signature mustache and mainstream stardom, is fitfully forlorn as a man lost in the Film Noir haze, and director Robert Aldrich makes even the slower parts interesting except those conversations with Deneuve: As a love interest, she's just not interesting.And despite a tacked-on tragic finale, this cop/melodrama feels more like reading than watching – a good thing provided you won't be able to put this down once it picks up.

musiconthemoon 2 out of 5 (points off for sagging and failing to connect the characters with the plot, therefore pissing me off). Initially, the striking resemblance between the young Burt Reynolds and a young Marlon Brando caused such a distraction that it was a challenge not to try to stick an orange in his mouth and make him say "Respeck me, respeck the family" .But then Reynolds' eyebrows started acting up.Burt's eyebrows have such an amazing screen presence of their own it becomes difficult to focus on anything else. If they aren't insured I don't know what is (see also Tom Selleck's moustache for hairy trade marks. {Incidentally my spell check offers 'Saltlick' as a substitute to Selleck…Tom Saltlick}). Watch Reynolds in this film as he winces in a desperate attempt to restrain his eyebrows; the concentration on his face is amazing. Those eyebrows seem to have the ability to go all the way up and over his head to meet his arse like some cheeky Mexicans crossing a border.I have a theory that Reynolds had to grow his big moustache which we all know him for to counter balance the gravitational pull of his brows. Anyway…this film; almost really good. Paul Winfield (Chekov's captain in the 'Wrath of Khan') puts in a great performance as Reynolds' partner. Did I mention that Reynolds and Winfield play really rubbish cops? That's the mainstay of this film. These guys think that being a cop involves sitting in their office having a bitch about the world while drinking whisky from their filing cabinet; "What's this? The father of his dead child cares about her death? For Gods sake! What the hell does he have? Emotion? And he wants us to do what? Investigate? What a bastard." That wasn't a quote, even though it had quotation marks. My favourite quote comes from Winfield's character, who is inexplicably interrogating an albino black person for no reason. Yes. An albino black person. With an awesome white afro. For no reason. He beats the apologetic albino in question and yells "you chalky mother f*?ker!" at him, which I have appropriated as my new favourite insult. Later on we learn that he's trying to single-handedly cut down the worldwide albino population. It's good to have a hobby I suppose, although it has nothing to do with the plot (very few characters in this film do, including our protagonists and most of the antagonists).When you can draw your eyes away from Reynolds eyebrows (something he himself tries to do constantly) you can definitely notice the Foley artist hard at work. One scene had Reynolds' hooker girlfriend brush her hair which sounds like she was tearing newspaper, or when a guy walks across a boat deck sounding like he's Mr. Tumnus tap dancing on the roof of a garden shed.Burt's girlfriend in this film is some kind of sexual businessperson who likes to sleep with old people for money, and takes "interesting" phone calls on Burt's funky telephone (that's not a euphemism). He doesn't mind though, presumably because of the two crazy eyebrows he has to deal with, which he probably calls his 'twins'. I have to say I have never been confident on the phone, and so don't phone the 'sex lines', however if I did, and had to pay for it, then I wouldn't want the kind of indifference that this woman deals out to her clients, I get enough of that in real life. She actually ends one saucy phone encounter with "…and there you go" like she's just solved a sudoku puzzle. Sexy.Overall this is a good film with good performances from everyone, but the script seems to be confused. The message seems to be that if you are a nobody then nobody cares. Unless you're an eyebrow.To be honest I watched an episode of Magnum PI, incidentally starring 'Tom Saltlick', called 'Way of the Stalking Horse' (season 6) which was stylistically similar to this film. It was gritty and dark, but just plain better. And shorter.As a geeky side note; a security guard confuses Magnum with Burt Reynolds in the season 7 episode of Magnum P.I called 'L.A' …and Tom Saltlick's eyebrows don't dance on his face like two drunk monkeys at a rave.Ross @ www.musiconthemoon.com

jcohen1 Alternate and original title (all comments from 28 year old memory) City of Angels. I saw this movie while on 3-4 hour break from college classes in lower Manhattan. Burt plays Burt. His character is a little too worldly to be believable, yet I love this picture. Deneuve is hot and Burt daydreams about retiring to Italy with her where they can open a liquor store. Burt keeps saying "Bingo" every few minutes. He had to be cheating. Seriously, the film is serious product placement for Bushmill's Irish Whiskey. After watching the flick I went out and got bombed on the stuff. Wound up Millstoned for 28 years. Recently got released. Has Burt made a good movie since I was in?