The Choirboys

I wish they still made movies like this. By that I mean one that has some sympathy for the adult male of the species.

This group of cops is varied in their attitudes , some bigoted, some liberal, some in the middle; just like civilians and real cops. The first part of the movie shows a lot of vice work and dated but funny comic routines, at a time when a single mother and a baby were not always inserted into every story. These cops go about arresting gays and prostitutes before laws and attitudes had changed.

The film was made in 1977, and for those too young to have lived it I am sure there are many cringe inducing scenes. One important and anachronistic episode shows an S&M hooker being caught physically abusing one of the police officer friends. The cops friend handles the hooker roughly , mad that she hurt his friend, and warns her to get lost.

If this film were made today, the hooker would be a single mother with a heart of gold, and the cop would be sneered at for being in this position to begin with. It was refreshing to see a movie with some sympathy for an adult male character, before the Hollywood mantra became "women can do whatever they want, men don't matter." Later in the film one of the cops with PTSD gets himself in trouble when he over reacts, and his friends try to cover for him. I have seen some younger viewers write that they were offended by the blue code of silence. I wonder if they would have been as offended if the perpetrator were a single mother and the victim was a man. I doubt it.

I like to think that The Choirboys is Joseph Wambaugh's way of showing the police at play. His novel The New Centurions showed police at work. In both cases they work hard they play hard as well and sometimes combine both.

For those who grew up as I did with Dragnet as the way we thought of police The Choirboys couldn't be father from Jack Webb's straight laced view of cops than Mercury is to Pluto. This film follows a group of cops who can't share a bond with any other than themselves.

It's a fraternity no doubt and these guys carry on like frat boys. Oddly enough if you remember Goodfellas Lorraine Bracco observed that the Henry Hills never hung out with anyone other than other criminals and their significant others.

So much so that the group of them all hang out with Tim McIntire who none of them can stand. He's a pretty loathsome character, a racist redneck and a bully, still he's one of the guys.

Two of them come to a bad end for differing reasons, all of them are in a jackpot where Chief Robert Webber is looking to nail The Choirboys to the wall. The oldest of them saves them, but you'll have to see how.

The oldest of them is Charles Durning who at 53 is still on street patrol. He's basically a non-conforming guy who more than likely screwed up big time when he was young and now just doesn't give a crap. He'd like to just coast out for his 20 years and he's months away.

The Choirboys is something I'm surprised a police officer as Joseph Wambaugh was would write. I look at like Jim Bouton's book Ball Four and that less than reverent book of the New York Yankees in his stay there. This is kind of the stuff you definitely leave in the clubhouse.

This review is dedicated to my nephew Colin James Kogan who is a member of the NYPD going now on his third year. I told him that whatever it takes get off the street as soon as you can and never be Charles Durning when he reaches middle age.

"The Choirboys" is essentially made of two different movies: the first half (and more) is a plotless, "Police Academy" -type (even if it was made several years earlier) comedy, and a fairly consistently UNfunny one, too. It's not that the gags aim mostly at a juvenile level (which they do); it's that they are simply not funny 90% of the time. In its second hour, the movie takes a sharp left turn toward drama, and surprisingly this part works better. But beware! There is a truly immoral finale that will annoy you if you take it seriously. (**)

...that truly excellent novels shouldn't be made into movies. Actually, Joseph Wambaugh (the author of _The Choirboys_ had several bad experiences with Hollywood directors mangling his work (The New Centurion, The Blue Knight), to the extent that he blasted the film biz in his scathing _Glitter Dome_.

In defense of director Robert Aldrich, Wambaugh's humor must be nearly impossible to convey through acting, but by the same token, it doesn't even appear that a good effort was made in this film, which seems to attempt to capitalize on a few lurid episodes of the novel that, when woven into the overall story, do much to characterize rarely-seen sides of police life, but when portrayed sheerly for shock value, kick this film squarely into "B" movie territory. It's a shame, since some decent acting performances (such as Louis Gossett Jr's) are evident, but they founder in this effort.

Overall: instead of renting the movie, buy the paperback. Infinitely more entertaining.

There's a saying that the best comedy comes from true life and there certainly is true life on display here but the problem is Altman. Just as the TV show MASH was superior to the movie, in this case the black comedy is there-and there are a few laughs but not nearly enough-because Altman doesn't know how to handle this material. What does capture is the dark humor that the cops use to survive end it captures some of the nature of what cops experience. The problem is I think it takes to too far. There's an incredible cast here though with some familiar faces who weren't notice the time but became quite famous later. For that alone it's interesting especially coming three years before Hill Street Blues a much better realistic portrayal of cops. I don't think this movie deserves all the ire of the reviews but I do think there are better adaptations Wambaugh.