Cyrus
11-03-2003, 07:47 PM
I saw again Bullitt the other day on DVD. My first take on it still valid: it's a bad movie.
- Steve McQueen is cool as the police lieutenant. Robert Vaughan way cooler as "ruthless congressman".
- The relationship of their two characters is full of holes. Why do they antagonize each other? What do they fight over?? They both want the witness to stay alive and to appear in court. The movie builds up the headbutting between the two and you expect some twist explaining this behavior, like Vaughan being in cahoots with the bad guys, but no, nothing like that. We are left wondering what all the bickering was all about. Weird.
- McQueen babysits a gov't witness whose life is threatened by the Mob (called "The Organisation" in the movie). McQueen goes to the hotel the witness is holed up and incredibly allows him to stay there, even though the windows are all perfect target practice from the highway rise passing right outside! Then McQueen organises shifts comprised by one (1) man per shift! (The witness gets hit the same night.)
- The Mob hits the witness with "two professionals", as McQueen describes them. Some professionals! They shoot the cop but only injure him and then, unbelievably, they don't finish off the hit! The witness is left alive after an amateurishly wild spraying of bullets. The "professionals" depart without administering no coup de grace. Pathetic or what?
- The still-living witness is taken to a hospital and ...the same "professional" who missed the hit is sent back alone to finish the job. A nurse discovers him hiding in a room and doing something mysterious with a needle so the nurse screams, and the hitman makes a run for it. Guess the nurse got frightened by the plot's voodoo.
- Director Peter Yates, we learn from the DVD's extras, is "after reality". So he has real doctors and nurses playing in the movie, instead of actors. We witness the strange sight of real doctors giving chest hits to an actor! Then we watch a real coroner performing an autopsy --maybe the corspe is real too?
- McQueen does a brave, frightening stunt : he rolls flat on the airport's runway and the aircraft passes over him, tires very near his body.
- OK, the car chase. First time I saw it, it was very impressive! Now, I saw a few things more clearly and without hitting the Pause/Frame-by-frame buttons. Such as a green VW being present in almost every street. What's the matter, didn't the budget allow for a few more cars?? All in all, a good chase for its time but over-rated. McQueen did all the driving and he must be a good driver, though.
- Good musical score by Lalo Schifrin, he of the original Mission Impossible theme.
Overall, 4 stars out of 10. (Make it 5 since we get Jacqueline Bisset in the bargain.)
- Steve McQueen is cool as the police lieutenant. Robert Vaughan way cooler as "ruthless congressman".
- The relationship of their two characters is full of holes. Why do they antagonize each other? What do they fight over?? They both want the witness to stay alive and to appear in court. The movie builds up the headbutting between the two and you expect some twist explaining this behavior, like Vaughan being in cahoots with the bad guys, but no, nothing like that. We are left wondering what all the bickering was all about. Weird.
- McQueen babysits a gov't witness whose life is threatened by the Mob (called "The Organisation" in the movie). McQueen goes to the hotel the witness is holed up and incredibly allows him to stay there, even though the windows are all perfect target practice from the highway rise passing right outside! Then McQueen organises shifts comprised by one (1) man per shift! (The witness gets hit the same night.)
- The Mob hits the witness with "two professionals", as McQueen describes them. Some professionals! They shoot the cop but only injure him and then, unbelievably, they don't finish off the hit! The witness is left alive after an amateurishly wild spraying of bullets. The "professionals" depart without administering no coup de grace. Pathetic or what?
- The still-living witness is taken to a hospital and ...the same "professional" who missed the hit is sent back alone to finish the job. A nurse discovers him hiding in a room and doing something mysterious with a needle so the nurse screams, and the hitman makes a run for it. Guess the nurse got frightened by the plot's voodoo.
- Director Peter Yates, we learn from the DVD's extras, is "after reality". So he has real doctors and nurses playing in the movie, instead of actors. We witness the strange sight of real doctors giving chest hits to an actor! Then we watch a real coroner performing an autopsy --maybe the corspe is real too?
- McQueen does a brave, frightening stunt : he rolls flat on the airport's runway and the aircraft passes over him, tires very near his body.
- OK, the car chase. First time I saw it, it was very impressive! Now, I saw a few things more clearly and without hitting the Pause/Frame-by-frame buttons. Such as a green VW being present in almost every street. What's the matter, didn't the budget allow for a few more cars?? All in all, a good chase for its time but over-rated. McQueen did all the driving and he must be a good driver, though.
- Good musical score by Lalo Schifrin, he of the original Mission Impossible theme.
Overall, 4 stars out of 10. (Make it 5 since we get Jacqueline Bisset in the bargain.)