In 7 words or less: You ever pick your feet in Poughkeepsie? Best bits? The chase scene is sublime. How they managed to choreograph all those cars is staggering and not a blue screen or computer generated image in sight.
Did it make you think thoughts? This film won best picture, best director and best actor and all rightfully so. Yowza! One of the main attractions here is the fact that there are lots of long single take shots devoid of dialogue that still manage to pull you into the story. In fact I reckon you could fit the entire script into five pages of A4 paper. The reason it works is that our hero(?) Popeye Doyle chomps his way through every scene. He is brash, violent, aloof and dedicated in his desire to crack the latest narcotics case he has stumbled across. It also reminded me how much I loved Gene Hackman. Scheider is also great as Pop's partner and it made me wonder why he never got the great roles he deserved (obviously apart from Jaws - The Chief's number 5 film of all time).
Would you watch it again? For sure. This is a bona fide classic.
Rating (out of 100%): a drug busting, car chasing, feet pickin' 90%
Rating (out of 100%): a drug busting, car chasing, feet pickin' 90%
