Bullitt (1968)
Country: US
Technical: col 113m
Director: Peter Yates
Cast: Steve McQueen, Jacqueline Bisset, Robert Vaughn, Don Gordon
Synopsis:
San Francisco police officer, Frank Bullitt's popularity is harnessed by a local politician trying to make a name for himself by exposing the Organisation. Bullitt is assigned to protect a star witness but when things go wrong he finds himself out in the cold.
Review:
Looking artier with age, and positively brimming with atmosphere, this was always a Brit's eye view of an American location and genre: spare, slick, and quite violent for its day. The plot is never that easy to get, but if anything this enhances the film's repeat-viewing potential. Also, McQueen is at his minimalist best and the atmosphere of corruption is powerfully evoked. The film's edgy, deliberate car chase was much imitated, and Lalo Schifrin's score is a classic. On the downside the love interest seems perfunctory, there to voice misgivings about the violent streets the modern cop is obliged to tread (the film was in a sense a rehabilitation of an unpopular figure in American society).
Country: US
Technical: col 113m
Director: Peter Yates
Cast: Steve McQueen, Jacqueline Bisset, Robert Vaughn, Don Gordon
Synopsis:
San Francisco police officer, Frank Bullitt's popularity is harnessed by a local politician trying to make a name for himself by exposing the Organisation. Bullitt is assigned to protect a star witness but when things go wrong he finds himself out in the cold.
Review:
Looking artier with age, and positively brimming with atmosphere, this was always a Brit's eye view of an American location and genre: spare, slick, and quite violent for its day. The plot is never that easy to get, but if anything this enhances the film's repeat-viewing potential. Also, McQueen is at his minimalist best and the atmosphere of corruption is powerfully evoked. The film's edgy, deliberate car chase was much imitated, and Lalo Schifrin's score is a classic. On the downside the love interest seems perfunctory, there to voice misgivings about the violent streets the modern cop is obliged to tread (the film was in a sense a rehabilitation of an unpopular figure in American society).
Country: US
Technical: col 113m
Director: Peter Yates
Cast: Steve McQueen, Jacqueline Bisset, Robert Vaughn, Don Gordon
Synopsis:
San Francisco police officer, Frank Bullitt's popularity is harnessed by a local politician trying to make a name for himself by exposing the Organisation. Bullitt is assigned to protect a star witness but when things go wrong he finds himself out in the cold.
Review:
Looking artier with age, and positively brimming with atmosphere, this was always a Brit's eye view of an American location and genre: spare, slick, and quite violent for its day. The plot is never that easy to get, but if anything this enhances the film's repeat-viewing potential. Also, McQueen is at his minimalist best and the atmosphere of corruption is powerfully evoked. The film's edgy, deliberate car chase was much imitated, and Lalo Schifrin's score is a classic. On the downside the love interest seems perfunctory, there to voice misgivings about the violent streets the modern cop is obliged to tread (the film was in a sense a rehabilitation of an unpopular figure in American society).