Un silencieux au bout du canon

Okay so John Wayne will forever be remembered as "The Duke" in a countless string of westerns, but watching him play an honorable and tough as nails cop named Police Lieutenant Lon McQ, is worth every penny watching him do "his thing". Some of the other IMDb reviewers have compared this film to the Dirty Harry (Clint Eastwood) films but in fact The Duke, is just playing himself and rather than seeing him riding a big horse The Duke is seen cruising and shooting in his extremely rare Brewster Green 1973 Pontiac Trans Am SD-455 (Super Duty). I could not imagine the Hollywood heavyweight John Wayne squeezing into a two (2) door 1974 Ford Pinto so of course if he is playing a cop out to revenge his friends murder and defending himself against a mob and drug cartel, the director has to put The Duke behind a muscle car.

Honestly, I have NEVER seen a bad John Wayne film and this is no exception. In fact I quite enjoyed the storyline, and John Wayne was perfectly cast as the lone detective out seeking justice with a big, big gun and two big fists. You will not be disappointed.

I give McQ a solid 7 out of 10 IMDb rating.

My opinion of John Sturges' McQ has evolved over the years. I saw it thirty years ago on NBC (with only a few bullet holes and mild curse words eliminated) and thought it was a flabby, but relatively decent little cops and robbers flick. It had the additional enjoyment of being filmed, in part, in Seattle, an exotic city some 280 miles from my home, Spokane.

John Wayne was something of a cartoon to me when I was a teenager. I didn't understand or appreciate his body of work and that he was a unique performer--to paraphrase his words, "not an actor, but a re-actor." His screen persona was simple and subtle, very human yet heroic. I didn't see any of this; McQ was just John Wayne putting on a business suit (as the reviewer in Time said, "Seems like putting Cary Grant in bib overalls"), strapping on an exotic weapon, and sliding behind the wheel of a Trans Am to go kick drug-dealer butt. McQ wasn't anything special. Just a cop movie with an old guy playing young.

As I got older--and saw McQ uncut on WTBS or KSTW--I began to appreciate both the film and its star even more. Yet I knew that the conventional wisdom of McQ was that it was a ridiculous attempt to modernize Wayne's image, to cash in on his stardom (which it didn't; McQ flopped at the box office). I declared McQ to be my official "Sinful Pleasure," a really bad movie that is truly lovable.

Think of a dog so ugly it's cute.

I taped a keeper copy of it off Cinemax, watched it every year or so. A DVD came a couple of years ago. I realized I never get tired of this movie. It's got lots to complain about--the looping of the dialogue is atrocious, the geography is laughable, the clichés are stacked like cord-wood, and the thought of all the better things John Sturges did in his career keeps popping into my mind.

Yet . . .

Wayne is at his most comfortable, maybe his best work since In Harm's Way. The crime drama itself plays out nicely, with clues being offered out at just the right pace, Seattle and the Olympic Penninsula are beautifully sun-washed and crisp-looking, and Wayne's costars give real weight to the movie--Colleen Dewhurst, Eddie Albert, Diana Muldaur, and David Huddleston, to name a few. There are a few over-the-top scenes that stretch credulity (his confiscation of a MAC-10 machine pistol from a gun dealer and talking Ebonics to Roger E. Mosley come to mind), but our affection for Wayne, and his professionalism, allow him to tame the gamier moments. You actually can believe his call for help to Seattle patrolmen when his car is demolished by a couple of semis, "Get some foam on this thing. I'm up to my butt in gas!" His embarrassment when asking for money from ex-wife Julie Adams and her moneybags husband is one of the best moments in the movie. And, of course, his being seduced by Dewhurst, at first, is so off-putting that you may want to make a Mystery Science Theater 3000 comment at the screen.

But if you're anywhere near adulthood, realize this: Middle aged people (Wayne's character is in his fifties and so is Dewhurst's) have sex. Wayne is the gentleman, here. He's being approached by Dewhurst and he doesn't want his saying no to be hurtful or condescending. If you watch the scene more than once, I believe you will see it as a sweet and decent moment and not some sort of dirty joke about old folks.

This brings us back to the evolution of my opinion of McQ. First it was an okay shootemup, then a sinful indulgence, and now, a set of good performances that lift up an otherwise pedestrian crime drama. It's easy to brand a movie a "sinful pleasure" because you can trash it while enjoying it. Sort of a cheap shot; cowardice comes to mind. McQ is no longer a sin for me to enjoy. It's a pretty good movie with really good people.

I recommend it, warts, jive, and all.

I just saw McQ for the first time in a while and I still don't understand where all the harsh criticism comes from. Was John Wayne such an incredible actor that if he comes out with an ok effort it's looked at as crap? I'll admit this movie was not an academy award winner, but it really was quite enjoyable. I liked seeing Wayne in something different. He actually did a decent job as the tough cop who went up against drugs and corruption. In contrast to reviews I've read I really don't see as much sameness to some other movies of the time e.g. "Dirty Harry." It dealt with its own issues and had a fine supporting cast. As far as actioners go I think this one holds its own and turns out to be a pretty fun "Duker."

I've always felt that John Wayne did his two police films McQ and Brannigan for a combination of reasons. Some of his last westerns before these like The Train Robbers and Cahill were really not up to standard and didn't get the reception at the box office Wayne films could usually expect. I also think those rugged western locations were becoming a problem healthwise. And of course Wayne was bowing to the public's new taste in heroes.

In McQ Wayne is investigating the death of his partner, the way Humphrey Bogart investigated the shooting death of Jerome Cowan in the Maltese Falcon. He has to go private to do it, he actually resigns from the Seattle PD and gets a private license, courtesy of a friend, David Huddleston. The investigation leads him to some surprising and not welcome conclusions.

John Wayne is always the great symbol of law and order and at first glance you would think this might not be a role for him, investigating crooked cops. But when you think about it in films like Tall in the Saddle and Rio Lobo he dealt with crooked sheriffs in the usual Wayne manner. In fact the whole point of Rio Lobo is Wayne putting his whole life on hold to find a couple of guys who betrayed him and their country during the Civil War. So McQ is definitely in line with both of those films.

In the supporting cast my favorite is Al Lettieri the drug kingpin of Seattle. Lettieri's death a few years after this film was a great loss to cinema. During the first half of the Seventies, ever since playing Virgil Sollozzo in The Godfather, Lettieri created some really outstanding villains and Manny Santiago here is one of them.

The ending will surprise you and its more Maltese Falcon than you would think.

If you don't particularly like John Wayne, then I doubt if this film will change your opinion. But, if you do like his films and want to watch some mindless action, it's not a bad bet at all--though the film is awfully derivative. That's because only a short time before this, the Dirty Harry films debuted and were VERY successful. John Wayne must have been really ticked, as he was first offered the part as Inspector Callahan ("Dirty Harry"). McQ is his attempt to cash in on the genre, though the results were definitely very mixed.

First, let's talk about the bad. The overall tone of the film is pretty dark and depressing. A plot involving stolen drugs and dirty cops was a far cry from the usual John Wayne fare. Plus I was pretty shocked when this newer and "hipper" Wayne gave drugs to Colleen Dewhurst to elicit her assistance AND THEN he slept with her! This just seemed rather gross. Occasionally, the Duke's reasoning abilities seemed a bit "super-human"--such as how did he know what he knew when the film was about to end??!! Also, unlike Dirty Harry and Wayne's next film (BRANNIGAN), there are no great lines from the film such as "you feelin' lucky, punk". Also, the story itself is just okay.

As for the good, there are some wonderful action scenes--ones that a 60-something Wayne couldn't have really done if his life had depended on it! And the final confrontation was really exciting and about what you'd hope for in the film.

By the way, while I only see this as a slightly better than average time-passer, his next film, BRANNIGAN, is a much better film. While not exactly a sequel, he plays a very similar role but the writing, locale and acting is just a whole lot better--and aside from THE SHOOTIST, is probably the best film of the final decade of Wayne's career.