The plot is very straightforward: McQueen (The
Thomas Crown Affair, The Great Escape) stars as San Francisco police
detective Frank Bullitt, who has been specifically selected by a bigwig
politician (Vaughn, Superman III)
to tend to a high-profile witness, Johnny Ross (Renella) , who is to inform on
the mob in just 48 hours. Someone must have tipped off the mob as to
Ross's whereabouts, as two hit men enter the hotel room and blast away Ross
and his police guard working the shift. Bullitt is almost sure to take
the blame for the mess, but he is determined to get the culprits and find out
who is leaking information.
Although films like The French Connection
and Dirty Harry would prove to be even
more influential, exhilarating, and thematically resonant than Bullitt,
this is the one that showed the potential for exciting turns of events in seeing a
tough cop
openly defy authority to do what he feels is right, no matter what the cost to
himself personally. Before this film, one can see that most movies
involving cops, at their core, involved some very dry police investigations,
with the bad guys being the more interesting characters. With Frank
Bullitt, we have a cop that is every bit as interesting and edgy as the men he
is supposed to take down, unpredictable in his actions, and seemingly at odds
with what he is expected to do for his department from a public image
standpoint.
As alluded to earlier, the sad part about a film like Bullitt is that,
while definitely exciting in a time when bloody violence, intense car chases
and salty language weren't the norm (made just after the lifting of the
Hollywood Production Code), most films that came after of a similar nature
would be even more bloody, more intense, and more explosive. To properly
appreciate a film like Bullitt nowadays, it almost necessitates viewing
it in context of the times in which it had been made, and not to stack it up
against the Lethal Weapon series or its
modern-day ilk. Ironically, in some ways its subdued nature (at least by
the standards of today's action-thrillers) works in its favor; it's rare for a
film to actually show how cops realistically operate when confronted with
deadly brute force and high-pressure circumstances, and try to operate within
the law.
Bullitt is a solid police procedural blessed with some exciting
cut-loose moments that are a welcome relief from the heavy, sometimes stagnant
delivery that can occasionally be a chore to sit through. Though it
would win the Academy Award for its editing, Yates does draw out the story,
often slowing the pacing in order to make for a more atmospheric drama that is
more indicative of the style of films of the late 1960s than it is of the cop
thriller genre as a whole. With a solid plot, interesting characters,
and Steve McQueen's undeniable screen presence, it stands up today as a
respectable effort, even if it could use some tightening. It's a shame
that future genre pieces would only emulate the exciting chases and bloody
bang-bang action, jettisoning the realistic, level-headed drama in between for
absurd
comic banter and glossy sensationalism.
