L'anti-gang

I have always been a huge Burt Reynolds fan, I've always admired his humility and his way of engaging with the audience be it as actor or Director.

The film opens to the enchanting tones of Randy Crawford signing Street life, incidentally the film ends on a duet to what closely must resemble the sound of the emasculation of two cats with a blunt knife.

Anyway Sharky is demoted to Vice when 'he' messed up a drug bust. Down in Vice is where we meet the gang who all add wonderful dimensions to this film and each shines in his role, Charles Durning is hilarious he screams with such intensity you really become concerned for his blood pressure.

Just when it looks like Vice might be boring a whole can of worms opens up when they begin to stake out some 'High class' call girls (the stake out is a little long almost in real time), the plot involves a puppet politician and the puppet master played amazingly by the one and only Vittorio Gassman.

Sharky starts to fall for 'Dominoe' (gorgeous but she's gotta give up the cigarettes she sounds like the Bouvier sisters from the Simpsons) one of the 'High Class' call girls, incidentally Burt Fell for another 'High Class' call girl in 'Hustle'.

Burt was very generous with the script he gave some of the best stuff to the supporting cast, in actual fact sometimes through the movie in his quest to build Sharky as the strong silent type the lack of script for himself turned Sharky into the strong boring type. This was very apparent when he was finally with Dominoe at his pad, he was pining around like a 13 year old. He couldn't string two words together he just looked bashful so bashful he almost looked mentally challenged, he did everything bar kicking his heels looking at the floor and saying "Gee golly I ain't never done kissed no girl be fower hu hulk".

In all it's a very entertaining film, it drags a bit here and there, but it always comes back to life and the last 30 minutes are a roller-coaster, watch out for Henry Silva who plays a whacked out hit man, my favorite scene is when he points his gun at Arch and…..

Sharky's Machine is directed by Burt Reynolds and written by William Diehl and Gerald Di Pego. It stars Reynolds, Vittorio Gassman, Rachel Ward, Henry Silva, Carol Locatell, Brian Keith, Bernie Casey, Earl Holliman and Charles Durning. Music is by Snuff Garrett and cinematography by William A. Fraker. Plot finds Reynolds as Atlanta narcotics cop Tom Sharky, who finds himself busted down to vice squad after a drug bust goes badly wrong. If he thought it was going to be dull and routine he is very much mistaken, for soon enough Sharky finds himself in deep with a high class prostitution ring, political corruption and cold blooded murder.

The Sharky's Machine of the title is the group of cops that Tom Sharky gathers for the case he is working on. What starts out as standard surveillance at the home of beautiful hooker Domino (Ward), turns into a bloody trip into the workings of the seedy kingpins pulling the strings. But the kicker here is that as Sharky becomes an unwilling voyeur to Dominoe's life, he finds himself falling for her. He's fascinated by her, he feels from a distance her sadness of a life that she knows no better of. Tom Sharky is a tough dude, a manly man, a perfect role for Reynolds in fact, but he also needs to be loved, he likes roses and wood carving, he looks back to a childhood lost, it's this compelling characterisation that lifts Sharky's Machine above many other cop thrillers in a similar vein.

The film is, however, still violent and unflinching in its observations of this seedy part of Atlanta. Scum, violence and abuse is never far away, and Reynolds the director shows a deft hand at balancing the rough with the smooth motions of the narrative. He also shows admirable restraint for sex scenes, choosing mostly to suggest rather than titillate, while his acting performance is top notch as he neatly layers the strands of Sharky's emotional psyche. Around Reynolds is an array of engaging professional performances, notably Casey, Keith, a wonderfully maniacal Silva and Ward, the latter of which blends smouldering sexuality with an innocence that tugs the old heart strings.

Some of the outcome is telegraphed early, and the ending, having been a frantic and bloody last quarter, is crowned too abruptly (a shame since it contains an awesome stunt), but much like Reynolds' 1975 film Hustle, this too is badly undervalued in the neo-noir universe. 8/10

In a departure from his customary late '70's/early '80's fare (and sporting a new, close-cropped toupee), Reynolds directed and starred in this tough, lurid crime drama. He plays a narcotics cop who, after slightly botching a drug bust, is demoted to the vice squad. Here, he becomes involved in the surveillance of a high-priced call girl (Ward) who is linked to a gubernatorial candidate (Holliman.) This leads to all sorts of violence and intrigue as it is discovered that the call girl is but one piece in a puzzle of corruption and criminal behavior. Reynolds does a decent job, both in the director's chair and in front of the camera. He wisely surrounds himself with an array of strong character actors and gives each of them the opportunity to register with the audience. His familiar brands of charm & sarcasm are present, but in a much more toned down way. Casey gets one of his most significant big screen roles, Keith has a few amusing moments and Durning bellows and mouths off in his enjoyable, expected way. Gassman is an appropriately sleazy crime lord and Silva is a chilling (if sometimes unintentionally funny) assassin. Ward's performance is a matter of taste. Many viewers are swept away by her looks and find her acting strong. Others see her as pretty, but unspectacular as an actress. In either case, this was a major showcase for her which did not translate to a major big screen career. Drawbacks of the film include a muddled storyline in which the bad guys' motivations aren't made particularly clear. Also, the sound effects and the blaring song score are cranked up much higher than the dialogue which makes for an uncomfortable audio situation. There is some nice aerial photography, notably containing shots of Atlanta's Peach Tree Tower. The music varies from classic tunes by top talent to loud, horrific and agonizing "music" by inferior singers whose voices are almost as bad as Reynold's torture on the boat. Though the film is engrossing and stylish, just a nip and tuck along the way would have made it even better.

On the surface SHARKY'S MACHINE is just another crime thriller come star vehicle with the slight gimmick that its star also directs the film . Truth be told Burt Reynolds isn't the greatest actor of his generation but he does have a certain manliness that served him well throughout his career . Likewise as a director there's nothing outstanding here but by the same token it's certainly more than competent . The film is certainly helped by its setting and 1970s cinema is a highpoint of American film making and everything about the film screams 1970s , an era of great cynicism but one that Reynolds has successfully translated well to screen

It wasn't well in to the running time that I realised I was watching a film set in Atlanta because I thought the story was taking place in New York . In those days New York had a terrible reputation as a sleazy place where crime and vice was running out of control . Regardless as to the truth of all this even if you'd never visited the city you'd have images of dirty streets falling in to a state of disrepair and police stations full of hard bitten sarcastic cops interrogating hookers all day every day , a reputation that was probably reinforced by American film makers . Truth to be told Reynolds certainly plays up to this reputation

The film works best in the first third as Reynolds goes undercover to trap a drugs dealer only to see his hard and dangerous work ruined by a colleague and then finds himself being assigned to the vice squad where every enjoyable and amusing cliché is served up to the audience . Once the story starts where Reynolds cop investigates a beautiful call girl called Dominoe things start to fall apart slightly . As several people have mentioned already the film would have worked much better if several scenes had been trimmed or left out completely and the film would have been much better if it was a 90 minute film than a two hour one . As it stands it's an okay crime thriller but you'll probably enjoy it more if you can remember the 1970s

Sharky's Machine finds Burt Reynolds as a narcotics cop who after a failed buy and bust that wasn't his fault, but that got a few people killed in it, he finds himself demoted to the vice squad in Atlanta.

The prestige is hardly as good as the narcotics beat, but it does have its fringe benefits. One night after a roundup of working girls where one of their books falls into their hands, the guys ask for surveillance on Rachel Ward's place. She's an expensive item, servicing both notorious mobster Vittorio Gassman and law and order gubernatorial candidate Earl Holliman.

Their surveillance however records a murder and the rest of the film is Sharky and his new colleagues from vice trying to solve this prestige case.

Though it's a Burt Reynolds film and those usually have some humor to them, the comedy is kept in check as the film turns as deadly serious as Dirty Harry. It was reported in fact that Clint Eastwood was offered this film.

Look for some good performances by fellow vice cops Bernie Casey and Brian Keith and by Henry Silva the coked up brother of Gassman who does the dirty work of the organization and loves his job.

It's not a bad film, a mixture of Dirty Harry and Laura. Why Laura? You'll have to see Sharky's Machine for that answer.