Requiem pour des gangsters

Walter Hill wrote a string of excellent crime films in the 70s: The Getaway, The Warriors and The Driver. Hickey & Boggs is the weakest of the bunch, but it's still a very good film.

It was directed by Robert Culp who also plays the co-starring lead. Direction wise it is very good, but workman like. It is helped immensely by a great script with snappy dialogue. I can't help, but think if Hill or Peckinpah had directed it that it might have a bit more flair.

Robert Culp lacks the charisma of Clint Eastwood or Steve McQueen. He's a fine actor though and is physically imposing even next to Bill Cosby. Bill Cosby plays it straight, no jokes, no silly laugh; just a tough guy role. The role lacks something that Eddie Murphy brought to 48Hrs, maybe just humour. This pre-dated the buddy cop style of film by a decade though, which has been the blueprint ever since.

Bill Cosby's private life has since buried this film like a suitcase of stolen money. I think if you can look beyond that it is a very good film with some great stunts, sharp dialogue and action scenes. Like all 70s films it also has cops who look like real people rather than male models and criminals who are genuinely nasty rather than corny pantomime gangsters.

The Blu-Ray from Kino Lorber has a superb print, but only 2.0 sound. It's sadly difficult to find.

Unknown or forgotten, and never released on video, this unexpectedly gritty film from Robert Culp (who also directed) and Bill Cosby is light years away from their popular I Spy series. As two low-end private eyes, neither has ever been more effective on screen before. An interesting, atypical contrast of styles in their acting; Cosby plays it humorless, (in a realistic, lived-in fashion, not a tough guy caricature) while Culp is alternates several nice modes for his character.

The earliest directorial effort from Walter Hill stands among the best of his career (it would make a fine double bill with his classic THE DRIVER), and also among the best of the rich era of 1970's crime dramas. It was released by United Artists and the rights-holders would do us a favor to release it for sale. It has some class-A action scenes and two terrific central performances. Hopefully will soon see the light of day again and gain some of the reputation it so deserves.

Hickey & Boggs is directed by Robert Culp and written by Walter Hill. It stars Culp, Bill Cosby, James Woods, Ta-Ronce, Carmencristina Moreno, Rosalind Cash, Lou Frizzel, Isabel Sanford and Sheila Sullivan. Music is by Ted Ashford and cinematography by Bill Butler.

Al Hickey (Cosby) & Frank Boggs (Culp) are two jaded private investigators who get hired to find a missing woman and quickly find themselves submerged in a world of murder and untruths.

I don't think the title does it any favours, because in no way does it imply what a bleak and potent neo-noir this is. In many ways Hickey & Boggs is the anti private investigator film, it portrays two men failing in life who are just about clinging to the last vestiges of their work, that of the private dick. Robert Culp and Walter Hill strip everything back to unglamourous terms, there is nothing remotely sexy or invigorating about this detective agency, Al and Frank do it because it's all they have, all they know in fact.

The film makers push the two men through a grimy and fetid Los Angeles, pitching them in amongst an array of weirdos, killers, revolutionaries, sexual deviants and angry officials. There's actually a lot of bold colours on show, the two PI's themselves wearing bright lurid blue and green suits, but all the colour coding on show in the film is a front, a misdirection tactic, this Los Angeles is on the surface colourful and sunny into the bargain, but Hickey & Boggs firmly operates on a seedy and downbeat level, the urban milieu as far removed from a holiday brochure as you can get.

Al and Frank, bless their shabby souls, are damaged goods, incapable of the kind of human interaction that most take for granted. Even between themselves they have lost the will to interact outside of work orientated chatter. In fact chatter is a key issue in the film, or lack of as it turns out. There's some beautifully zippy dialogue throughout, real spiky barbs straight out of noirville, but the pic is at its best, away from the action scenes, in how periods of silence involving Al & Frank say so much. One will either rant or repeatedly ask a question, while the other stares off into space or nurse yet another alcoholic beverage to forget his pain. As a character study, this wades through the sludge and blood to show a clinically cynical hand.

Then there is the action scenes, excellently constructed by Culp. Two shoot-outs especially are high grade in quality, and extended they are as well. Aurally they are like a Panzer Division unloading its armoury, visually it's intentionally comic book as per bullets used, but excitement is guaranteed, while the finale, is played out on a beach that gives great carnage and then cuts like a knife to close the pic down in the most suitable of fashions. The screenplay is at times a little too aware of trying to be a convoluted nudge nudge wink wink to the halcyon days of film noir, with Walter Hill on his first writing assignment proving to be wet behind the ears, though the eagerness and respect of the style of film making is genuine in the extreme.

Three absolutes come out of viewing Hickey & Boggs nowadays. One, is that Culp the director, some minor pacing issues aside, really shouldn't have let the film's poor box office prevent him from directing further assignments. Two, is that Cosby shows here he was capable of great character based drama, his performance is simply terrific. Three? Hickey & Boggs is under seen, under valued and should be a requisite viewing for anyone interested in neo-noir. 9/10

Robert Culp directed this tough '70s crime flick about two down on thier luck private investigators in LA. Culp and Cosby are miles away from the characters they played in I SPY, but the chemistry is still their. Another note - several prominent actors make early appearances in this film - James Woods, and Michael Moriarty. Vincent Gardenia appears in the cliche role of the put upon, aggravated police contact. Good news - this film is now available on DVD. The company releasing it on DVD is AIP films. Quality of the transfer is mediocre, but it's still worth it to see this underrated film again.

Despite the setting of Southern California and daytime set pieces, this is a very dark film, and presages much of Walter Hill's later work. A good cast, including the great Bill Hickman (a world class stunt driver and distinctive screen presence), it was probably marketed poorly. Movie-goers were led to believe that this "reunion" of TV's popular I SPY co-stars was going to somehow harken back to that glib and serendipitous collaboration.

Best line o'the film: after a protracted shoot-out with two sets of adversaries in Los Angeles' famed Coliseum, in which few bullets found their marks, Culp, while reloading his long-barreled S&W .357 Magnum, mutters: "I gotta get a bigger gun."