Busting

This was Peter Hyams directorial debut and he does show some of the elements that would later make him a very good filmmaker. Elliott Gould and Robert Blake play two vice cops who are tired of they're job until they try and bust a hooker (Cornelia Sharpe) and are told that she has connections with a local mob boss (Allen Garfield) and because of that she won't be prosecuted. So then they decide to check him and his operations out. What I think hurts the film is that its so predictable and its just another cop film from the seventies. Nothing that special. Gould and Blake use the usual cop banter when they talk and then there is the obligatory scene with Gould in his rundown cheap apartment. Every cop film has this scene. Of course the Sgt in charge of them keeps telling them both he's heard complaints about them and you have to have at least one car chase. There is one impressive scene and its where they chase three bad guys out of a building and into a supermarket. Its done in one continuous shot and its accompanied by an effective piece of music. Its a very well done scene and very well choreographed. The same music is heard during the ambulance chase scene. Football player Carl Eller has a scene where he beats up Gould and how about Blake calling Garfield "Spanky"! Hyams would later direct better films than this and while this film does have some decent moments (Like Gould on the stand!) its still not up to par with a lot of the cop films of the seventies.

Directed by Peter Hyams, Busting apparently inspired the television show Starsky & Hutch. It was released at a similar time as Freebie and the Bean which was commercially more successful but Busting is more tighter, coherent and cynical picture that still retains elements of its comedy.

Keneely (Elliott Gould) tall, laconic and chews gum all the time and Farrel (Robert Blake) shorter and tougher are two LA vice cops who spend most of their time arresting hookers and people in gay bars rather than than the big crime lords who they feel are being protected by their superior officers and cynical lawyers.

They decide to go all out to catch the local crime lord Rizzo (Allen Garfield) which annoys their superiors who prefer they go after the small fry.

The film has a comedic and anarchic tone but beneath the cynicism it also has a heart of two cops trying to do the right thing and not happy with just fitting up hookers and their clients.

There are thrills as well with well staged shootout sequences in a market and later in a hospital. The film is a softer and sarcastic edged version of The French Connection featuring elements of a buddy cop duo and a message that crime does pay.

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.

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 almost got to see "Busting" in the theater. I was 9 years old and my brother was 7 and we were with our father seeing the other half of a double feature. After that ended we begged him to let us stay and see the R rated "Busting". He agreed. We only lasted five minutes. It takes about that long before the lady gets naked in the dentist's office. "Let's go". I've seen "Busting" quite a few times since then and it's one of the greatest cop movies to come out of the 1970s. Writer/director Peter Hyams (One of my favorites) does an excellent job. The camera work is terrific. The cast is top-notch with excellent performances from Elliott Gould and Robert Blake. Gould has never been better. Every time I watch "Busting" it's so good that I forget that I've seen it already.