Busting (1974)

You won't be disappointed!

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

Gould and 'Our Gang' regular Blake play a couple of vice cops who give up on the rest of their lazy and thick-headed department and decide to go about cleaning up the streets single-handedly (come on people, Eastwood, Friedkin and Michael Winner had already done their stuff). Enter every crime/sleaze caricature imaginable, and in 70s gear to boot.Hyams' first feature is a very straight-faced but contemporarily 'hip' outing, which here and there seems inevitably hilariously dated in its trappings and social mores now, but also doesn't stray too inconsequentially from the tested 'buddy movie' formula. It's got a fine cast and Hyams' action style certainly won't disappoint fans of his later work. In terms of violence, there is certainly a not-inconsiderable brutality quotient, but I don't know whether I was getting the complete picture in this BBC print, as the BBFC website indicates that 30-odd seconds (of what, not specified) were originally cut for both Cinema and Video.

Elliott Gould and Robert Blake are a surprisingly affable team in this blood-spattered crime-flick written and directed by Peter Hyams, which stays loose and shaggy and doesn't wrap itself up too much in seriousness or pretensions (until the finale). Two Los Angeles vice cops, tired of seeing their prize busts going unrewarded by a police commissioner who is on the take from a sleazy crime czar, use their down-time to shake up the kingpin, whom they are sure is about to pull off a major drug exchange. The leads are a lot of fun, particularly Gould, and Hyams keeps the camera moving-moving-moving until you feel convinced he must have his cinematographer strapped to the back of a motorcycle. There are the usual cheap shots, titillation asides, a blatantly moronic judge, and the proverbial exasperated sergeant who keeps saying things like, "My ass will be in a sling!" Hyams is really tough on Los Angeles, and one might come away from the picture asking: if the police force were so corrupt, wouldn't that be a bigger story than the one we're getting? Still, the combination of good performances, an interesting script, a goofy undermining, and a down-and-dirty scenario makes the movie a rowdy ride with exciting sequences. **1/2 from ****

I first saw this in the mid '80s and thought: 'what a stylish thriller!' It seems to have been filmed in a low-grade film stock, which has given it a grainy/soft-focus look which also adds to it's realism. Elliot Gould, who stars as one of the hard-bitten cops also appears in another Peter Hyams opus, Capricorn One. Robert Blake who plays Gould's partner, later featured in his own TV detective series called Baretta.There are some wonderful set-pieces in the movie, the best in my opinion involving our heroes chasing some bad dudes from a seedy hotel, and through a supermarket on the streets. It's classic Cat-and-Mouse fare, as the villains take a hostage while Gould 'n' Blake have them firmly in their gunsights. This moment is ingeniously realised by Hyams' use of a wide-angled lens. There are also brilliant car chases galore to marvel at.Anyone who is a fan of this type of gritty cop thriller with a downbeat ending, would enjoy another good example: William Friedkin's 'To Live and Die in LA' (1985) which stars C.S.I.'s William Peterson.

I saw this on the bottom half of a double feature and it quickly became one of my all time favorite obscure movies. The basic plot is nothing special(two vice cops , tired of busting hookers and gay bars, decide on their own to take on the city's vice/drug kingpin) but it is exciting and well made. A couple of action scenes stand out: one involves a chase of drug dealers through a supermarket all done in one long take (like the opening scene in "Touch of Evil") and the second is the final chase between two ambulances(!) that in my opinion is as good as those in Bullit and the French Connection. This is also features Elliot Gould's best performance. One scene in which he is forced to recant his testimony against a prostitute he arrested(because she had 'friends' in the department) and the resulting humiliation and frustration he expresses while being cross examined was very vivid. I don't think this is on video and it rarely plays on tv but it is a well made film that should satisfy action fans and make them think a little too.