Paul Newman is an Irish cop with eighteen years on the force and Ken Wahl is his younger Italian partner and sidekick. Newman is kind of philosophical about the rotting neighborhood of the 41st Precinct in the Bronx. There must be people who are only trying to survive but, as usual, the police don't have much to do with them and must deal with the raggedy and treacherous hoi polloi.
There's the sour taste of exploitation about this movie. That it's designed to shock us by showing us the lunatic asylum that the South Bronx was in 1980 (and it really WAS) is apparent in the opening scene, in which two rookie police officers are shot to death in their car, and the bodies are ransacked and robbed by local teen agers. In quick succession there follows a foot race, a car pursuit, and a crazed cross-dresser threatening to jump off a roof unless he's interviewed by a famous newscaster.
We also get to see another disheveled bum threatening a dozen people with a knife. The way Newman disarms him is by turning his cap backwards, making funny face and gloopy chipmunk-like noises, and approaching him while doing a spastic dance, until he can gently remove the knife from the hypnotized guy's hand. After the chaos and killing we've been witness to, it's an embarrassment because it's just silly and unbelievable.
Ken Wahl, as Newman's partner in anti-crime, looks a great deal like Chris Noth of "Law and Order." He plays the same role and even wears the same leather coat. In fact I believe they are one and the same person. No? Let me ask you, have you ever seen both of them in the same room at the same time? I thought not.
When a role engages Newman he can really deliver, as he did in "The Hustler." When it doesn't, we get "Torn Curtain." Here, he gets to go from cheerful and ironic to brooding but with few ornate moments. He does squeeze in a few seconds of believability with his girl friend on a park bench, and again when he performs the requisite ritual of turning in his shield.
The film features two beautiful and alluring women. Pam Grier, out of her mind and half out of her bodice, has a hair-raising scene as a deranged killer who kneels before one of her victims -- who cooperates willingly -- and goes into this slurred riff about, "Have you ever seen a snake in the woods?", before letting the pink tip of her tongue slither out from between her lips. And Rachel Ticotin, with her throaty intonations and black-lashed eyes, is the essence of femininity.
Nobody can save the film though from mediocrity. Harold Gould, the writer, has produced a screenplay that seems to have no idea of where it's going. Ed Asner is the new police chief who is determined to run the precinct by the book. Is he a paragon of rectitude or is he a moron? Is he something in between? When he's introduced, we don't know, nor do we know at the end. And when the police station is surrounded by an angry neighborhood activist group armed with baseball bats and throwing garbage at the thin blue line, why is Newman at the window, happily egging them on by shouting, "Free the Brothers!", a cry that the crowd takes up. What the hell does he think he's doing? The director, Daniel Petrie, does nothing to help. Lots of pointed shots of falling buildings and piles of garbage, as if we needed it spelled out. The locker room banter has no wit or sparkle yet everyone is laughing out loud. Entire scenes seem forced and overdone.
It's too bad because the milieu is an interesting one. Many of the elderly residents, mostly white, were justifiably afraid to leave their apartments. The 1970s and 1980s were hard times in the cities. White flight to the suburbs had depleted their tax base. New York was close to bankruptcy. And the baby boomers of all races and ethnic origins were at an age when the crime rate was highest. I disagree with almost every one of Tom Wolfe's values but no one can fault him when it comes to reportage. For a realistic glimpse of life in the Bronx in that period, go to Wolfe's "The Bonfire of the Vanities."
There's the sour taste of exploitation about this movie. That it's designed to shock us by showing us the lunatic asylum that the South Bronx was in 1980 (and it really WAS) is apparent in the opening scene, in which two rookie police officers are shot to death in their car, and the bodies are ransacked and robbed by local teen agers. In quick succession there follows a foot race, a car pursuit, and a crazed cross-dresser threatening to jump off a roof unless he's interviewed by a famous newscaster.
We also get to see another disheveled bum threatening a dozen people with a knife. The way Newman disarms him is by turning his cap backwards, making funny face and gloopy chipmunk-like noises, and approaching him while doing a spastic dance, until he can gently remove the knife from the hypnotized guy's hand. After the chaos and killing we've been witness to, it's an embarrassment because it's just silly and unbelievable.
Ken Wahl, as Newman's partner in anti-crime, looks a great deal like Chris Noth of "Law and Order." He plays the same role and even wears the same leather coat. In fact I believe they are one and the same person. No? Let me ask you, have you ever seen both of them in the same room at the same time? I thought not.
When a role engages Newman he can really deliver, as he did in "The Hustler." When it doesn't, we get "Torn Curtain." Here, he gets to go from cheerful and ironic to brooding but with few ornate moments. He does squeeze in a few seconds of believability with his girl friend on a park bench, and again when he performs the requisite ritual of turning in his shield.
The film features two beautiful and alluring women. Pam Grier, out of her mind and half out of her bodice, has a hair-raising scene as a deranged killer who kneels before one of her victims -- who cooperates willingly -- and goes into this slurred riff about, "Have you ever seen a snake in the woods?", before letting the pink tip of her tongue slither out from between her lips. And Rachel Ticotin, with her throaty intonations and black-lashed eyes, is the essence of femininity.
Nobody can save the film though from mediocrity. Harold Gould, the writer, has produced a screenplay that seems to have no idea of where it's going. Ed Asner is the new police chief who is determined to run the precinct by the book. Is he a paragon of rectitude or is he a moron? Is he something in between? When he's introduced, we don't know, nor do we know at the end. And when the police station is surrounded by an angry neighborhood activist group armed with baseball bats and throwing garbage at the thin blue line, why is Newman at the window, happily egging them on by shouting, "Free the Brothers!", a cry that the crowd takes up. What the hell does he think he's doing? The director, Daniel Petrie, does nothing to help. Lots of pointed shots of falling buildings and piles of garbage, as if we needed it spelled out. The locker room banter has no wit or sparkle yet everyone is laughing out loud. Entire scenes seem forced and overdone.
It's too bad because the milieu is an interesting one. Many of the elderly residents, mostly white, were justifiably afraid to leave their apartments. The 1970s and 1980s were hard times in the cities. White flight to the suburbs had depleted their tax base. New York was close to bankruptcy. And the baby boomers of all races and ethnic origins were at an age when the crime rate was highest. I disagree with almost every one of Tom Wolfe's values but no one can fault him when it comes to reportage. For a realistic glimpse of life in the Bronx in that period, go to Wolfe's "The Bonfire of the Vanities."