Hustle

Having collaborated on "The Longest Yard", director Robert Aldrich cast Burt Reynolds and Eddie Albert again in the enigmatic "Hustle". Reynolds plays LA cop Phil Gaines. He and his wife have basically no relationship, so Phil lives with call girl Nicole Britton (Catherine Deneuve). When a young woman gets found dead on the beach one day, Phil and his colleague Louis Belgrave (Paul Winfield) get hired to investigate. They conclude that she died of a self-induced drug overdose. But they don't tell her parents (Ben Johnson and Eileen Brennan) that there were massive amounts of semen in all three orifices of the woman's body, and that the woman was a stripper in a nightclub. The father is convinced that this was not a suicide, and is determined to investigate on his own if necessary.

I have to say that the movie has a rather convoluted plot: the number of characters - and the question of each character's relationship to each other - makes the whole thing hard to follow at times. As it is, following the revelation of the body at the beginning, the movie sort of throws Phil into the story from right out of the blue. It seems that mostly, the movie functions as a look at the underbelly of 1970s LA, including a hostage situation in one scene. And, if all else fails, there's always something sexy for Catherine Deneuve to do (namely the part about what Switzerland has). A surprise appearance - although they do credit him - is Ernest Borgnine as Phil and Louis's superior; he's the only character who seems as if he's about to have a seizure or something.

Overall, I think that the movie is seeing, if only once. While it is true that the movie progresses pretty slowly, I actually would assert that that adds some realism: not every detective/action story has to be a series of explosions and mayhem.

All in all, a worthwhile movie. BTW, did you notice who the hold up man at the end is? It's Freddy Krueger himself, Robert Englund. And I wonder if David Spielberg is related to Steven Spielberg.

Sammy Davis Jr. hugging Nixon...

Burt Reynolds plays Phil Gaines, a middle-aged California cop plagued by a midlife crisis. His wife is seeing someone else, and he's in love with Nicole (lovely Catherine Deneuve), a prostitute. His job as cop entails endless frustrations not only with criminals but also with victim relatives, two of whom are Marty Hollinger (Ben Johnson) and Marty's wife Paula (Eileen Brennan), whose daughter was found dead on the beach. And the case is Phil's to investigate.

Some viewers will object to the film's admittedly slow pace. And the film does have a problem, but I don't think it's the pace. I think the problem here is that the script doesn't give us enough reason to care about Phil Gaines and his life as a cop. That he dates a prostitute does not help. There's also insufficient back-story about him. Except for his love life, we really don't get to know him very well, certainly not well enough to foreshadow the film's implausible double climax.

Perhaps the script's biggest flaw, however, is its lack of focus. Too much screen time is given to the Marty Hollinger character and his silly efforts to solve the case of his daughter's death, on his own. Whose story is this: Phil Gaines' or Marty Hollinger's?

But "Hustle" is not a bad movie, really it isn't. The casting and acting are fine. I thought Eileen Brennan especially gave a memorable performance. The film's production design is good. And color cinematography is terrific. I really liked those outdoor scenes on the deck where Phil and Nicole chat about life and love, with "Yesterday When I Was Young" playing in the background. Such scenes convey a melancholy, nostalgic mood, consistent with Phil's midlife crisis.

Although the screenplay is flawed, "Hustle" is still worth watching at least once, for the underlying character study of a cop in midlife crisis, for the fine acting, and for the film's excellent cinematography and production values.

Nope, the movie with that amazing stunt mentioned above is "Stick", not "Hustle". "Hustle" is a nice little film, though - a fairly predictable TV cop movie plot, lifted well above the ordinary by some intelligent well-written dialogue and a nice, world-weary performance by Burt Reynolds (honest!).

Around the same time, the director also made "Ulzana's Raid" and "Twilight's Last Gleaming", both of which are deeply critical of the Establishment. True to form, in "Hustle", Reynolds' cynical detective takes some savage swipes at American society. Best line - "Can't you smell the bananas? We're living in f*cking Guatemala. With colour televisions." (The screenwriter also wrote "Save The Tiger" - with a very similar moral).

Well worth watching on late-night telly - NOT worth watching for Catherine Deneuve, who's remarkably wooden in English.

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?

Hustle is directed by Robert Aldrich and written by Steve Shagan. It stars Burt Reynolds, Catherine Deneuve, Ben Johnson, Paul Winfield, Ernest Borgnine, Eddie Albert and Eileen Brennan. Music is by Frank De Vol and cinematography by Joseph Biroc.

A dead girl on the beach, that creates heat.

When the body of a young hooker and drug user is found on the beach, the weary LAPD detectives wrap it all up quickly as a suicide. But the father is having none of it and sets about doing his own investigation. All parties involved with the woman, known or presently unknown, are heading for a collision course.

You are doing it for a nobody.

It's a bleak and seamy L.A. that forms the setting for Aldrich's sadly undervalued neo-noir. A place where the police are often corrupt, turning a blind eye to illegal activities perpetrated by high profile suits, where pimps, pushers and prostitutes thrive. Unfaithful wives, a shoe fetish and rebuilt asses also mark the land! Our central cop is Lt. Gaines (Reynolds), a cynical classic movie buff yearning for the European world of harmony depicted in the movies he so enjoys. He's in a relationship with a French call girl (Deneuve), it's a strained relationship, but there is love there if the two of them could just unshackle their hang-ups and vulnerabilities. And then there's the tortured father of the dead girl (Johnson), an ex-serviceman of the Korean War, he's highly strung, volatile, he carries deep emotional baggage that will become heavier the more he learns about his baby girl's existence.

I'm starting to draw dirty pictures of what you do.

The case of the dead girl is merely a backdrop to the unravelling of the primary characters' make ups. This is very much a character driven piece, a slow burn, complex and cynical picture. All characters mean something, adding much to the near depressing tone that Aldrich, Shagan and Biroc have (rightly) favoured. These characters give the film many layers, rendering all dialogue to be of interest, while ensuring the narrative is not linear. It failed at the box office on release, it's perhaps not hard to see why. On the surface, via plot summary and marketing, the film lovers of 75 thought they were getting a murder mystery-cops and villains-crime story, with Reynolds leading the machismo fight for justice. But this is far better than your run of the mill crime picture, it's dark, brooding, and even allows itself some moments of humour to nestle in nicely with the uneasy nature of the beast. While the finale is pitch perfect noir, it's not apologia, it brings the film to a cruelly ironic close.

Patiently crafted by the brilliant Aldrich, and performed with considerable skill and emotion by the cast, Hustle is top line neo-noir and deserves a more appreciative audience. 9/10