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Movies

Silent Movie (1976) a (incredibly) belated review

I have a great deal of fondness for the works of writer/director/actor Mel Brooks.  Many of them, anyway.

I loved the original movie version of The Producers (1967) and found myself roaring with laughter at the scheming of Zero Mostel’s Max Bialystock and the nebbish performance of Gene Wilder.  Seven years later in 1974, Mr. Brooks co-wrote and directed not one but two absolutely fantastic comedies: Young Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles.  Just those three films alone raise Mr. Brooks -in my humble opinion- to the upper echelons of movie producing comics, even as I have to admit to not being a big fan of the works he did afterwards.

Mind you, I haven’t see them all.  I saw both History of the World Part 1 (1981) and Spaceballs (1987) and thought they were decent comedies with some inspired bits but weren’t quite on the level of those earlier works.  Of the films he made that remain, I’ve heard enough bad things about Life Stinks, Robin Hood: Men in Tights, and Dracula Dead and Loving It to know these are probably not for me.  If I catch ’em, fine, but if I don’t…

Which leaves the two “in between” films (not counting The Twelve Chairs) that were released between Mr. Brooks’ peak and his later works.  I’m referring to Silent Movie (1976) and his parody of Alfred Hitchcock films, High Anxiety (1977).  I saw bits and pieces of both films but never quite got to see the whole thing.  So when TCM offered a block of Mel Brooks films a couple of weeks ago and those two films were part of it, I set the DVR to record.  Thus far, I’ve seen Silent Movie aaaaannnnnndddd…

…it wasn’t my cup of tea.

Mind you, there were some very clever jokes scattered here and there, but overall this film, a homage to the silent comedies of yesterday, fell very flat.

Silent Movie is a silent movie about making a silent movie.  Mel Brooks, in his first actual starring role in one of his films, plays Mel Funn, a washed up director who had an alcohol problem but has cleaned up his act and now, with his companions Marty Eggs (Marty Feldman) and Dom Bell (Dom DeLouise) at his side, wants to make a comeback with a (you guessed it) silent movie.

His first step is to convince the head of the movie studio (Sid Ceasar) to go along with his scheme.  Naturally, this being 1976 and the last silent film was released an awful long time ago, the Studio Chief is completely against the idea.  However, things are tough for the studio and there is a threat they might be taken over by a large conglomorate.  After Funn promises to get a bunch of A-List actors to appear in his movie, which may help it be a success, the Studio Chief accepts and we’re off to find the stars.

What follows is the bulk of the film, where our three leads bump into several at that time very big name stars, including Burt Reynolds, James Caan, Liza Minnelli, Marcel Marceau, Anne Bancroft, and Paul Newman.  Each star has a humorous encounter with our leads but, frankly, other than a very clever gag involving Marcel Marceau and a more energetic meeting involving Paul Newman, I found the whole thing rather flat.

Perhaps part of the fault lies in the passage of time.  Sometimes comedy (and action) is like that.  While there are many delightful and hilarious comedies from the silent era, there are others that show their age.  In the case of Silent Movie, this now nearly forty year old film simply doesn’t work for me.  I found the slapstick lacking and the star appearances, which I’m certain at the time were incredible to see, today don’t have quite the same resonance.

On the plus side and as mentioned before, there are some very clever jokes, particularly the one involving famous mime Marcel Marceau.  I also like the meta nature of the film, where Mr. Brooks plays a man who is trying hard to make a silent film, something I’m certain must have been hard to convince the studios to allow him to do despite his previous successes.  And how best to sell your silent movie than by having a bunch of stars show up in it?

Despite this, the film just didn’t do all that much for me and I can’t recommend you go see this Silent Movie.

Movies

The Other Woman (2014) a (sorta/kinda and mildly belated) review

There was a time, briefly, that I imagined it would be absolutely great to have a career as a movie critic.  I absolutely loved going to the movies back then and had plenty of free time to do so.  In those pre-internet days I devoured reviews in various newspapers and books and would regularly watch Siskel and Ebert on TV.

As I grew older, I realized I’d make a terrible movie critic.  The fact is that I like certain types of films and, conversely, don’t like others.  While I’m sure every critic out there has their personal likes and dislikes, the best movie critics -one hopes!- should enter a film with as neutral a stance toward the material they’re about to see as possible.  Their review, therefore, should be about what they saw and how they felt about it and remove any potential prejudices.

I couldn’t do that.

Yesterday evening, my wife and I were sitting in the living room considering what to watch.  Though I had several shows waiting to be seen on the DVR, I wasn’t in the mood to watch them, even though we needed to free up some memory in the DVR (is it me or does there never seem to be enough space?!).  I pointed out to her we had the 2014 Cameron Diaz/Leslie Mann/Kate Upton movie The Other Woman and asked her if she wanted to see it.  Unlike me, she doesn’t mind watching romantic comedies and so we started the sucker up, even though I had a pretty good feeling what my opinion of the movie would be.

I wasn’t wrong.

The first forty or so minutes of this film were…how to put it kindly?…not very good.  One could see where the movie was going but it felt like you were watching a early screenplay draft pushed into film.  Plain and simply, this section of the film could have used some judicious trimming to get to the point faster.  I also realized that the movie’s storyline was somewhat given away by the commercials and movie posters which were eager to point out Kate Upton’s role (and, more importantly, the fact that she’s in a bikini!) in the film, as you can see here:

Watching that commercial, you have the first forty minutes of the movie condensed into the first fifty seconds and it works much better!

Despite a sluggish start, things got cooking when the movie’s three stars were (finally) brought together and the central point of the plot, that of taking revenge on the husband/cheater, was initiated.  Much of it was juvenile stuff but it wasn’t the worst I’ve seen and at least things were moving.

I missed some ten or so minutes toward the movie’s later half (which is why this is a sorta/kinda review) just before coming back to see the movie’s rather violent and bloody (!!!) end (I half expected the women pull out a gun and shoot the bastard!).  I don’t think I missed all that much.  By the time I briefly left the film, it was obvious where things were headed and they pretty much got there as I expected.

As I said before, I have my prejudices regarding feature films and going into The Other Woman I knew this wasn’t a film made for someone like me.  And that’s ok.  I wouldn’t want all movies to fit my definition of “good”.  My wife liked it fine, though she thought the opening act was as tedious as I did, so at least we were in agreement there.

In conclusion, if you’re into romantic comedies and are willing to sit through a dull and too prolonged opening act, you may find some fun in The Other Woman.  If, like me, you’re not really into these modern romantic comedies, steer clear.

Movies

The November Man (2014) a (mildly) belated review

I feel for actor Pierce Brosnan though I probably shouldn’t.  He’s handsome, well known, and keeps busy.  I’m pretty sure he also makes/has made a very decent living as an actor.  Still…

I first came to know of Mr. Brosnan, like many of my age, through his work in the TV show Remington Steele (1982-87).  The show was popular enough for people to notice Mr. Brosnan and, given that at that time Roger Moore was showing his age and it was clear he wouldn’t be able to continue playing James Bond for much longer, it became a foregone conclusion that Mr. Brosnan would be taking over the role.

Which made the by then faltering Remington Steele show get a second wind, ratings wise and be renewed for the 1987 TV season.  Because Mr. Brosnan was still under contract for the show, he was unable to move on into the James Bond role for the 1987 film The Living Daylights.  The role went to Timothy Dalton and with that movie’s success, it seemed Mr. Brosnan had missed his opportunity.  However, the second (and it turned out, last) Timothy Dalton outing, License to Kill, was something of a flop and, for a while, it appeared that the James Bond franchise was teetering on the edge of collapse.

Mr. Brosnan got his second chance to play Bond a full eight years after the cancellation of Remington Steel with 1995’s Goldeneye.  I recall being very excited to see him in the movie though I never was one of those who hated Timothy Dalton’s take on the character.  In fact, I felt Mr. Dalton was quite good in the two films he participated in.  But License to Kill, Timothy Dalton or not, was a terrible film, one of my least favorite Bond features, and it didn’t surprise me when the producers didn’t want Dalton back.

When Goldeneye was released, I was so there at the theater, dying to see Mr. Brosnan’s take on the character.

Turned out, I was incredibly disappointed.

Many consider Goldeneye the best of the four Brosnan Bond films.  I feel all four of the films committed the greatest sin any Bond film could commit: They were all so terribly, terribly mediocre.  Forgettable even.  So much so that I have to actually check to see how many films he made because the movies’ plots, to my mind, bleed into each other with little cohesion.

Disappointment led to inevitability.  When Mr. Brosnan’s last Bond outing, Die Another Day, was released in 2002, it felt like this was the end of the beloved spy.  It wasn’t of course, but that’s recent history I’m sure most are aware of.

When I first heard about the 2014 feature The November Man, I felt that old excitement coming back.  The idea of seeing Mr. Brosnan take up the “superspy” mantle once again was irresistible.  And as I put the film into the DVD player and watched the first half hour or so, I was in bliss.

Here we had Pierce Brosnan playing Deveraux, effectively an R-rated version of Bond and a take on that character I’ve been dying to see.  He’s older and wiser, crankier and more foul mouthed, but deep inside he has a code of conduct and despite the foul business involving his job, he tries to let a little light into the world with his actions.

I was loving what I was seeing.

But after a while, the film let me down.  Like the Bond films he participated in, not because of Mr. Brosnan.  His superspy carried the film well despite its obvious low budget (much of the filming was done in the economically friendly countries of Serbia and Montenegro) and some of the plot twists in the story were fascinating to watch, but what killed The November Man for me was that at some point the film simply lost all credibility.

One scene in particular, involving Brosnan’s Deveraux confronting the prime candidate for Russia’s presidency, proved laughable in its improbability.  Without giving too much away, it strains credibility to think even a superspy as good as Deveraux could somehow and all alone make a frontal assault on such an important man, mow past his army of security guards, and actually get to him!  Then, afterwards, despite all the gunplay in the Hotel he’s staying at, it seems no staff in the Hotel (particularly one -she had to be- deaf cleaning woman) has noticed the assault!

It was from that point on that the film heaped incredulity upon incredulity and, frankly, the movie limped to its conclusion with our main character essentially hoping others would miraculously come save his bacon (if you’ve seen the movie think about the ending…what exactly was Deveroux’s plan at that point?  He had none).

In sum, and despite a very game and pleasing performance from Mr. Brosnan, I cannot recommend The November Man.  A true shame.

Movies

David Cronenberg on Internet Criticism…

…it would appear he doesn’t like at least parts of it, including the Rottentomatoes “averages”:

http://io9.com/david-cronenberg-says-rotten-tomatoes-is-wrecking-film-1677869612

I think he has a point in that nowadays just about anyone out there (including me!) can be a critic and, sometimes, some opinions appear (to put it kindly) ill informed.

Yet everyone, including Mr. Cronenberg, should remember what by now should be an obvious fact: Personal tastes in the arts (movies, music, books, stories, etc. etc.) are subjective.  Just because someone inartfully states they found a film a failure because it was “boring” and/or conversely a success because the “effects were so cool” while offering few well reasoned facts as to why they liked/didn’t like a film doesn’t mean their personal opinion is wrong.  Others may well like or dislike a film for the very same reasons.

Where I do agree with Mr. Cronenberg is in the fact that by aggregating critical scores we’re giving equal weight to well thought out reviews as well as those that, in his opinion, aren’t.  Interestingly, he further notes that some well thought out critics that wouldn’t otherwise appear has done so thanks to the internet.  This, to him, is more the exception rather than the rule.

For me, I like Rottentomatoes if only to get a general idea of where critics (all of them!) and, more interesting, audiences stand with regard to movies.  I don’t tend to get too deeply into the reviews and only use the compendium score to get a general idea of how things fall.  Then again, unlike Mr. Cronenberg, a very successful and a times challenging moviemaker, I clearly don’t dive as deeply into the individual reviews as he does.

Like many modern things, it is the way things are.  Perhaps these aggregate opinions are harmful in the long run if they influence studios to the point that they delude the quality of film.  But it seems to me there have always been good and bad works out there and you can look long and hard to find what personally works for you.

Anyway, I’ll close on this, a list of 25 movies that critics loathed yet audiences loved, brought to you by (who else!?) Rottentomatoes:

http://www.hollywood.com/card/movies/57692333/movies-audiences-loved-critics-hated-rotten-tomatoes#234671/3

Movies

Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) a (mildly) belated review

Bear with me here…I know I’ve written about this before, but I think its pertinent.

Back in 1977 I was an 11 year old boy who absolutely loved science fiction.  I couldn’t get enough of the then in syndication original Star Trek, Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, Wild, Wild, West, etc.  I was heavily into reading sci-fi books and equally, if not more so, into reading comic books.  And science fiction films?  I was head over heels for them, catching whatever I could whenever I could.

I don’t recall the exact details but word got out back then in 1977 that a brand new science fiction feature film was THE hot ticket to catch that summer.  The movie was Star Wars.  I headed to the closest cinema on, I believe, the first or second week of that movie’s release, sat in my chair, and waited to be blown away.  The lights went down, the movie started and the crowd around me, for the most part composed of younger boys like myself, went wild.  They whooped and hollered.  They clapped and screamed.

And I sat there as the movie played out and wondered what it was I was missing.

Don’t get me wrong: I didn’t hate Star Wars.  But despite my age (I was an ideal age for the movie’s release), my interests (ditto), and the euphoric crowd around me which should have at the least pumped me up, the film just left me…cold.  So little did Star Wars thrill me that I skipped that movie’s highly anticipated sequel, The Empire Strikes Back when it first appeared in theaters.  I wouldn’t see that film until a couple of years later, when it aired on TV.  I thought Empire was OK but my feelings regarding it were on par with the original.

Fast forward to this year.  I’m a whole lot older but many of the interests I had back in 1977 remain with me today.  I still love science-fiction.  I still love to watch sci-fi on TV or in the movies, and I’m always on the look out for genuinely good sci-fi fare.

So this past summer, THE big movie release proved to be Guardians of the Galaxy.  After all was said and done, not only did the movie have the largest box office of the year, it scored an genuinely impressive 90% positive among critics and astonishingly strong 94% positive among audiences according to Rottentomatoes.com.

I didn’t have the time to catch the film when it was released theatrically, though there was at least one occasion where I almost saw it.  When the film was finally released to video, I quickly snatched up a copy of the BluRay.

Yesterday, I finally had time to watch this film.

Oh brother.

…oh, brother…

History, it would seem, has a habit of repeating itself, no?

For what is Guardians of the Galaxy but a modernized updating (and for the most part remake) of Star Wars?  Think about it: Our hero, Peter Quill, aka StarLord (Chris Pratt), is essentially a dual/hybrid version of both Luke Skywalker and Han Solo.  You had your Princess Leia-ish character in Gamora (Zoe Saldana), your Chewbacca in Drax (David Bautista), C3P0/R2D2 in Rocket Racoon (voiced by Bradley Cooper), and Obi-Wan Kenobi in Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel).

As for the bad guys, you have your “Emperor” in Thanatos (his appearance in this film, IMHO, was a complete waste), your Grand Moff Tarkin was Ronan while your Darth Vader was Nebula (the usually very delightful Karen Gillian, virtually unrecognizable under a ton of makeup).  Nebula, like Darth Vader, (SPOILER!) escapes death at the end of the feature to appear, of course, in the sequel to come.

The plot involves the bad guy trying to get a hold of a Infinity Gem which will allow him to destroy a world (another Star Wars concept, no?), and through the course of the adventure our heroes even wind up breaking out of a prison.

Yikes.

I have to ask: If you are like me and didn’t care all that much for Star Wars, what do you suppose the odds are you’d would like a virtual clone of that film?

By this point in time, it’s silly to either recommend of urge people away from this film.  Audiences have spoken with their wallets and with the critics’ adulation.  Still, despite some humorous lines here and there, I really didn’t like this film.

I know, I fall into a very small group, the 10% of critics and 6% of audiences that didn’t like Guardians of the Galaxy.  Yet there you have it.  Unlike the vast majority of people out there, this film just didn’t do it for me.

Oh well.

Movies

The Cat o’Nine Tails (1971) a (wildly) belated review

I’m fascinated with the similarities between old time murder mysteries and modern day horror films.  As “elegant” and relatively bloodless as the murder mysteries of author Agatha Christie were, if you push any one of her stories into a slightly more gorier mileiu, you have your modern horror feature.

I first realized this while watching the 1945 film version of Christie’s And Then There Were None.  In that movie, a group of disparate people are brought to an isolated island and, one by one, are killed off.  It occurred to me while watching that film that a more modern “take” of the story could highlight the messy deaths of the various characters over the tone and mystery of the story itself.

Director Dario Argento, best known for his “giallo” horror films, further proves my point with his second major work, The Cat o’Nine Tails.  The story goes like this: A blind man named Franco Arno (Karl Malden) and his adopted daughter live near a high tech research facility specializing in genetic mapping.  While walking back home one evening, the duo pass by a parked vehicle.  Inside, one of the scientists from that institute is talking to an unknown and shadowy individual.

Arno’s heightened sense of hearing picks up the fact that the scientist is trying to blackmail his mysterious companion.  That night the scientist is indeed killed, and Arno, with the help of reporter Carlo Giordani (James Franciscus), set out to find the killer…even as the bodies start to pile up and the killer targets them.

By today’s standards, The Cat o’Nine Tails is a dated piece of work.  I saw the American dubbed version and it is my understanding the original Italian version is a better overall film.  Still, what I saw was engaging enough but never got my pulse racing.  The mystery is rather hard to follow as the various suspects are given only short screen time before, for the most part, they’re killed.  The story picks up a bit when the murderer puts Arno, Giordani, and Arno’s adoptive daughter in his crosshairs, but we’re talking about the later stages of the film by that point.

What is intriguing is that you see what I was talking about before, the evolution of the murder mystery towards horror in this work, in this film.  The story could easily have been an Agatha Christie type mystery involving all the standard Christie-type characters.  The old blind man is effectively a character like Christie’s Ms. Marple.  The dashing and handsome reporter is your typical mystery hero type…on the job and, when the time comes, more than willing to use his fists.  Oh, and he’s a hit with the ladies (in this movie’s case, lady) as well.  The suspects, too, form a typical Christie circle of well-to-do’s who on the surface appear elegant and well-spoken yet underneath lurk some very dark secrets.

The murders, compared to the movie version of And Then There Were None, are much more “in your face”.  There is more blood and gore, though again by today’s standards nothing terribly shocking.

In the end, if you’re in the mood for some cinematic archeology and would like to see a movie that bridges the gap between the older, more “polite” murder mysteries of yesteryear and the gorier, more “in your face” horror films of today, you might find The Cat o’Nine Tails an interesting curio.  This applies double for fans of the works of Dario Argento.  Otherwise and given the movie’s dated tone and pace, you may want to stay away.  The Cat o’Nine Tails might have been strong stuff back when it was released, but by today’s standards is a far more sedate experience.

Movies

The Expendables 3 (2014) a (very mildly) belated review

Back in 2012, while reviewing The Expendables 2, I wrote the following regarding the first Expendables film:

So you have this old friend who tells you a new story involving people from your youth.  This story plays on nostalgia and features plenty of old faces in familiar situations.  By the end of the story, you smile.  You’ve enjoyed yourself perhaps a little more than you would have because of the nostalgia value.  The story presented, after all, wasn’t all that earth-shattering or, to be blunt, particularly good.

I went on to state that while I enjoyed the first Expendables film and felt the second was an overall better work, the problem with The Expendables 2 was that it didn’t benefit from the lure of nostalgia as much as the first and therefore didn’t appeal as much as the first.

Fast forward to 2014 and the release of The Expendables 3.  This time around, one big name (Bruce Willis) is gone, replaced by an arguably bigger name, Harrison Ford.  The villain of this piece, played by Mel Gibson, is also a far better known and accomplished actor (if more controversial) than either Eric Roberts (E1) or Jean Claude Van Damme (E2).

So, is The Expendables 3 any good?

For my money, this is the best of the three Expendables films.  Having said that, it still isn’t all that great a film.

The movie starts off quite horribly, with a very unimpressive (and filled with absolutely terrible CGI) action set piece involving an Expendables raid on a prison train carrying Doc (Wesley Snipes), one of their “lost” members.  Thankfully, that terrible opening leads to a far better action sequence involving arms dealers in Somalia.  It turns out the Expendables’ target, Stonebanks (Mel Gibson), was the co-founder of the group and one time best friend/partner of Stallone’s Barney Ross.  He is a man Ross thought he killed years before and the hatred between the two is palpable.  It is their hatred that raises this movie’s stakes higher and makes what follows more personal than what we had in the previous two films.  Stallone and Gibson are given wonderful opportunities to play off each other, something the other Expendable films never had.

The hatred between Ross and Stonebanks leads to the Expendables leader dropping his co-horts and hiring a new crew because he’s more willing to risk their lives than his “family’s”.  A cold blooded decision, certainly, but it is a cold blooded business.

But Ross grows to respect and, yes, love this new group just as much as the old and when they fall prey to Stonebanks he is forced to rescue them with the aid of his old team plus a new entry (Antonio Banderas, delightfully wacky).  Much mayhem follows.

Strangely, I had a Wild Bunch feeling for the later half of the film and was hoping we were headed in that particular direction.  Alas, the film goes too soft in the end and the triumph is never quite matched with sadness.

A further note:  It was fun to see Harrison Ford, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Jet Li in their smallish roles in the film.  I thought they were used just enough to amuse us but not too little (E1) or too much (E2).

In conclusion, if you enjoyed the first couple of Expendables films you should enjoy the third.  The draw, once again, lies in the nostalgia factor and seeing several icons of yesteryear inhabit the same movie frame.

Too bad the film goes a little too soft in the end.

Movies

Dead and Buried (1981) a (very) belated review

Back in the late 1970’s and into the 1980’s, horror cinema appeared to be on a crusade to push the envelope regarding gore.  Unfortunately, many of the films released at the time were either inferior productions or, after a few years, myriad sequels that repeated ad nauseam popular hits from yesteryear.

There are few horror films from that era that stick with me, but those that do, like the original Alien, have stuck with me for a very long time.  The 1981 film Dead and Buried boasts being made by “the creators of Alien“.  Does it come anywhere close to that classic?

Well…not quite, though the film does offer some good, Lovecraftian inspired chills along with some gruesome early Stan Winston effects.

The plot?  Well, that winds up being the movie’s biggest problem.  Not that the story presented is bad, necessarily, only that once it plays out one realizes this was maybe a one hour Twilight Zone/Outer Limits type story stretched out -too far!- into a feature length film.

Basically, the story goes like this: In the very small seaside town of Potter’s Bluff (a place that looks like it could be found in your typical H. P. Lovecraft story), a man goes to a lonely shore and takes nature pictures.  He is surprised when a beautiful blonde (Lisa Blount) appears and becomes very friendly with him.  But all is not as it seems and he is attacked and, it appears, killed.

When his torched vehicle shows is found, the town’s Sheriff, Dan Gillis (James Farentino) investigates along with quirky coroner William Dobbs (Jack Albertson, in one of his last movie roles) what happened to the man.  As the investigation goes on, strange things happen in and around the town.  Further, Gillis finds himself growing increasingly suspicious of the extra-curricular activities of his wife (the gorgeous Melody Anderson).

As I said before, all is certainly not as it seems and before the story is over Sheriff Gillis will uncover the eerie secrets of his hometown.

I don’t want to elaborate any more but suffice to say that despite an obvious very low budget Dead and Buried maintains a good level of suspense and delivers on its shocking gore.  The story, as mentioned, wasn’t enough to sustain a feature film and therefore the filmmakers had to add more victims to the story to fill out time.  Given the conclusion, one couldn’t help but wonder why there was such a need to have each victim so brutally killed..

Still, for a 30 plus year old film, Dead and Buried remains a decent enough horror feature with some still quite good special effects.  For those who enjoy the horror films of this era, this is an easy recommendation.

Movies

Hickey and Boggs (1972) a (very) belated review

So Kino/Loder decides to release the cult noir/detective 1972 film Hickey and Boggs this past week to BluRay aaaaand…could their timing be any worse?

After all, the film stars Robert Culp and….Bill Cosby.  Yup.  That Bill Cosby.

I ordered the film when its release was first announced several months ago, before the current Bill Cosby media blow up.  I guess if this film was in the planning stages for release at this moment, the studios would have scuttled it completely.  Which I suppose means fans of the film should be happy it was released at all.

Now, I happen to be a big fan of good film noir/detective dramas.  I’m also a very big fan of the early works of Walter Hill, the movie’s screenwriter.  I might have seen Hickey and Boggs many years ago.  Maybe not the whole thing, perhaps no more than a scene or two, and I remembered next to nothing about it.  Still, I had to get it, if only for Mr. Hill’s contribution.

I’m glad I did.

Having said that, let me address the obvious: Yes, it is uncomfortable to watch Bill Cosby, even this very young Bill Cosby, given the current stories surrounding his alleged behavior.  I know there are those who refuse to see any films, past or present, featuring Mel Gibson because of his well documented meltdowns and bizarre behavior.  The same will most certainly be the case with Mr. Cosby.

Having said that, if you can divorce artist from art, which is what I had to do, you will probably love the hell out of Hickey and Boggs.

The film’s story involves the two very much down on their luck private detectives (Culp, who also directed this film, and Crosby) and what happens to them after they are hired to find a woman.  The man hiring them is sleazy but in the case of the two detectives, beggars can’t be choosers.  Hickey and Boggs follow their sleazy client’s list of associates the woman might have ties with and sink deeper and deeper into an increasingly violent hole that, in the end, involves much more than a simple missing woman.

The rapport between Culp and Crosby, who had starred together from 1965 to 1968 in the popular I Spy detective show, is what makes this movie hum.  The two act and talk as if they have known each other for a long time (which by that point they had in real life) and their on screen relationship is easygoing and natural…just as their character lives are a disaster.

Taking on this particular case eventually puts them in the bullseye of both hired thugs and the police while tempting them to find a missing stash of money.

As I mentioned before, I enjoyed the hell out of this film and would easily put it up there with some of my favorite noir/detective dramas.  The action is good, the plot interesting, and Culp and Crosby are fascinating to watch as they warily pace the streets of a not so-sparkling L.A.

If you can forget for a moment the terrible stories associated with Bill Cosby and give Hickey and Boggs a try, you will not be disappointed.  If you can’t ignore the stories surrounding Mr. Cosby and find it difficult to separate the artist from his art, then you best stay away.