Hustle

Great, underrated film noir, expertly written, master class of the genre. Begs to be rediscovered. If you are a purist of noir, then this is a gift to you, courtesy of Aldrich. There is so much more to Burt Reynolds than people give him credit, and he proves it here. I may be alone in this, but i got the impression the film was lit for black and white and comes off badly in colour - the contrast is too extreme, and ultimately works against the film. Curiously, when i tuned it to b/w it looked incredible - as moody and mean as Aldrich would would have intended. And Deneuve isn't as bad as the critics made out. if you love noir and have a problem with this film, i can't begin to understand why.

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.

There is a "cop confronts a crazy guy holding a hostage" scene in the middle of "Hustle," but the film makes clear that this is peripheral to the real problems of the city and the film's protagonist. Burt Reynolds plays an L. A. cop who is rather complacent and pays scant attention to the death of Ben Johnson's 20-something daughter until he is compelled to, largely to prevent Johnson from creating too much damage with his own one-man investigation.

The movie meandered along until its 2 hour running time was up. I couldn't detect any narrative urgency here, but maybe my problem was that I couldn't buy Reynolds as a cop with a moral crisis. I found Ben Johnson far more interesting and found myself wishing that "Hustle" had been about his efforts to find out where his daughter had gone wrong. (Wasn't that what Paul Schrader's "Hardcore" tried to do several years after this film?) Also, Ernest Borgnine dominated the too-few scenes he had as Reynold's unlikeable boss. Still, the supporting characters couldn't push the film over the top for me.

Speaking of supporting players, I thought the guy in the liquor store robbery looked familiar. He turned out to be Robert Englund, ten years before he took up residence on Elm Street as Freddie Kruger. That reminded me of Sylvester Stallone's and Jeff Goldblum's brief turns as robbers in "Bananas" and "Death Wish".

I'm not usually a fan of cop movies, but this one is just so gorgeously lensed, and with more twists and turns than a roller coaster. Burt Reynolds, oozing that famous sex appeal, turns in a gritty, world-weary performance as a jaded cop, investigating the apparent suicide of a prostitute. This was 1975 and Reynolds was in his absolute prime here. He spends much time trading classic wisecracks with his cop partner, played to perfection by Paul Winfield, as he romances his own prostitute girlfriend, the stunning Catherine Deneuve. Yes, there are a lot of prostitutes in this very pulpy cop drama. At first there is so much going on that it is hard to follow all the various story lines, but soon the stories and assorted characters begin to intertwine in a fascinating way, taking the viewer on a wild ride through a seedy underbelly of smoke filled bars, strip joints and private sex parties. But the real draw here is the cinematography. "Hustle" is filmed in glorious 1970's style, very nostalgic and many scenes are so gorgeous that you want to freeze the frame and just study the shots. Deneuve & Reynolds are one of the most beautiful onscreen couples of all time, and they live in an A-frame house that seems to float in mid air. Reynolds drives a red Mustang convertible and plays sexy lounge music on his car 8 track tape deck. Complete with a shock ending that you won't see coming, it is a wonder that "Hustle" has not become a cult classic. Recommended for fans of cop movies, and classic style film making, "Hustle" is a winner.

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...