Shamus

"Shamus" is one of the more obscure movies from Burt Reynolds. Obtaining it on DVD is not an easy task, nor was it available on video for long. Regardless, this is a good film. The pace is quite tight, there is a sense of style about the production and Burt Reynolds oozes with sexual charisma. He plays a private eye who is employed for a job that pays $10,000. He realises that it's all too good to be true. Sure enough, the bad guys begin appearing and problems soon arise....... "Shamus" was one of the most violent films at this stage of Reynolds's career. Some of the death scenes leave little to the imagination. This feels more like an up to date version of some of those 1940s "Film Noir" productions. I'd call it an affectionate tribute. The script could have been stronger at times, plus the story seems a bit on the confusing side. Stil worth sticking with.

Burt Reynolds in his prime as detective McCoy investigates gun trade and several lovely ladies. Some investigations lead to life threatening danger, some to the pool table. The time of the plot is early seventies but some obvious and tradition conscious nods to the detective genre point back to the forties. Two scenes, the taking of the assignment and later a scene with a lady in a bookshop seem strangely familiar. Like they were lifted from 'The Big Sleep' and turned into something new and more humorous. If I'm not all wrong about those bits, they certainly are a nice touch to the story.

McCoy also seems to have a lot in common with Mike Hammer of 'Kiss Me Deadly', his nature. At one moment he is a likable wisecracking guy and a ladies man. Then at a moment's notice he may turn into a violently sadistic brawler using any means to put a man down and get any information he wants. He is almost like two guys at one, which considering the profession becomes very handy indeed.

Shamus is full of speedy action, chases, fights and some very good looking stunts which at least some of them Reynolds seem to have handled himself. No need to wonder his superstar status during the seventies. He really had the works, skill and presence many action stars of today are lacking. Dyan Cannon as McCoy's new flame is simply lovely. She is the heart of the movie and brings in the sexiness for male viewers. Not being much of a game player I don't have to wonder anymore about the holes in pool tables.

This film is worth viewing just for the pantomime Reynolds does during the opening credits; some really funny stuff. I also liked the fact that an old Twilight Zone alumnus, Buzz Kulick, directed. Reynolds is not a great actor and he knows it. He tends to play the same character in every film he appears in. The one exception is of course the masterpiece Deliverence, where he plays the stoic man of action to the hilt. Shamus is a fast breezy piece of work that is fun to watch and it appears that Burt Reynolds had fun making it. Reynolds also has a tie to The Twilight Zone. In an episode called The Bard, playing a method actor called Rocky Rhodes, Reynolds does a hilarious parody of Marlon Brando.

I just watched "Shamus" for the first time, ever. I mainly wanted to watch it for two reasons, one being I like early Burt, and also that it was filmed (the Brooklyn scenes) just blocks from where I grew up. I guess that I like early 70's NYC films as well.

Truth is, I did make it through the movie, but it's not really that good of a movie. Actually, I pretty much have absolutely no idea what it was about. Something about some stolen diamonds, guns, and shady people but it all just got lost to me. The main fun is watching 70's superstud Burt do his private-eye thing, which is mainly smoking cigarettes, acting cool, throwing around witty one-liners, getting chicks to go to bed with him, and punching guys out. Hey, good enough. What was that plot again? Funny scene in a bookstore where Burt walks in and decides he's gonna sleep with the hot intellectual chick in there, and of course he makes her melt with his ultra-coolness and smooth lines. Burt smooth-talks the gorgeous Dyan Cannon too, who kinda underacts here, like she's half asleep.

There are a lot of familiar 70's faces in this. But maybe best of all is Morris The Cat, who I guess earned the role from his rave reviews as 9-Lives spokescat (he was also in the movie "The Long Goodbye"). Morris earns raves as he uses his cool cat skills to, well, be a cool cat when things are happening around him. Morris gets fed a few times and we don't see the brand, 9-Lives definitely missed on some early product placement.

But Burt is good, as he participates in a lot of fighting, loving, swearing, and he even drives a huge stolen army vehicle throughout town with no police interference. The movie has an odd ending, maybe Morris should have helped that out. If you can watch Burt do his thing without caring too much about the mixed up plot, "Shamus" is good for a viewing.

(There may be Spoilers) If it wasn't for Burt Reynolds being in the film "Shamus" I doubt that it would have ever been made. At the hight of his popularity back in 1973 Burt Reynolds could do nothing wrong when it came to getting millions of movie goers to see any film that he was in and "Shamus" is a perfect example of his enormous drawing power back in those days.

You would have thought that the makers of "Shamus" would have given the movie a believable plot but right from the start it's totally unsound with a blowtorch, or flame-thrower, murder of Vincent Pappas and his girlfriend as their both in bed. The killers after setting the entire house on fire jump through the sky-window, in fire-proof suits, and rob the safe of millions of cut and uncut diamonds. They could have easily knocked off Pappas with a silencer gun or even knocked him out cold without drawing any attention to themselves by almost burning the entire house down!

The owner of the stolen diamonds a billionaire named E.J Hume who could have gotten the best detective agencies in the city, or the world, gets in touch with this down and out PI Shamus McCoy Hume's 53 choice! The other 52 private eyes he contacted turned down the job?. Shamus who's either too cheap or so weird that he doesn't even have a bed, in what looks like his Brooklyn loft, to sleep in. Shamus has a mattress attached to his pool table that he, and the many girlfriends and one-night stands that he has in the movie, sleeps on; a pool table on which we never see him pay any pool?

Getting $5,000.00 up front, and $5,000.00 after he finds E.J Hume's diamonds,Shamus goes on his way to find out just what happened to Pappas' stolen diamonds and who was responsible for his, and his girlfriend's's, murder. By this point the movie things really starts to spin out of control with now the US military being involved in some kind of illegal arms dealings by corrupt US Army Col. Hardcore that also involves the secretive E.J Hume.

You begin to wonder just what does Col. Hardcore have to do with E.J Hume's stolen diamonds and the Pappas' murders? As soon as were introduced to Col. Hardcore by Shamus' top squeeze in the movie Alexis Montaigne, who's brother Felix is also involved with E.J Hume in a company that he's a silent partner in, he's killed in broad daylight by E.J Hume's mobsters and both Shamus and Alexis are on the run for their lives.

Were never given to understand just what the connection is between E.J Hume's diamonds and the corrupt Col. Hardcore illegal arms dealings are and where in God's name are the tons and tons of military hardware going to? The Mafia the underground militias or to foreign or domestic terrorist organizations?

Burt Reynolds' Shamus is anything but a decent guy in the movie with him almost strangling, with a sadistically gleeful grin on his face, two helpless persons to death in order to get information from them. This brutal as well as uncalled for action could have easily landed him behind bars in any country on earth for committing crimes against humanity.

Later in the movie Felix is kidnapped by E.J Hume's hoods and almost beaten to death and all you can do is just wonder why? Felix was working with Hume and his mob and at no time in the movie was Felix ever suspected to be turning, or ratting, on Hume? So why is he treated this way? Shamus breaks into Hume's mansion and instead of saving the badly beaten Felix from Hume's thugs and attack dogs gets him shot and killed instead! No wonder Alexis walked out on him at the end of the movie.

The final few minutes of the film is a jumble of shootings dog and fist fights as well as Burt Reynolds' Shamus almost breaking his neck as he, or what was obviously his double, missed grabbing on to a tree branch and landing smack dab on his head on the hard ground below.

The film wasn't a total loss, for me at least, since it had in it the world famous Nine Lives feline star Morris the Cat, who's name for some reason in the movie was just "Cat", as Burt Reynold's co-star and Shamus' room-mate. Morris was by far the most believable handsome and likable character, as well as the best actor, in the movie.