Lt. Frank Bullitt (Steve McQueen) goes after the "Organization" that killed a witness under his protection. A slimy politician, Chalmers (Robert Vaughn) is breathing down his neck and making things very difficult for him. Will he have him thrown off the force before he finds the killers?
I've been hearing for years that this is a great movie. Seeing it, I can't see why people think that. Plotwise this is nothing new and the movie is slow and needlessly convoluted. By the end I was totally bored. Scenes come out of nowhere--at one point there's a little fight that Bullitt has with his girlfriend (a stunningly beautiful Jacqueline Bissett) where she complains to him about his acceptance of violence...but there's absolutely no lead up to this scene and the resolution is handled badly. It seems to come from different movie!
There are some good things here--it's well-directed by Peter Yates who makes beautiful use of San Francisco locations; the now-famous car chase is still exciting and well-directed and edited; McQueen isn't as bad as he usually is (his face actually changes expression once or twice); Bissett is badly used--but at least she's there; Simon Oakland gives a good performance as a police chief and Vaughn is excellent. It's also fun to see Robert Duvall (with hair as a cab driver), Norman Fell (another police chief) and Georg Stanford Brown (as a doctor) in small roles.
I'm giving this a 6 and that's mostly for Vaughn, direction and the car chase. Seriously...without the chase this movie would have been forgotten.
I've been hearing for years that this is a great movie. Seeing it, I can't see why people think that. Plotwise this is nothing new and the movie is slow and needlessly convoluted. By the end I was totally bored. Scenes come out of nowhere--at one point there's a little fight that Bullitt has with his girlfriend (a stunningly beautiful Jacqueline Bissett) where she complains to him about his acceptance of violence...but there's absolutely no lead up to this scene and the resolution is handled badly. It seems to come from different movie!
There are some good things here--it's well-directed by Peter Yates who makes beautiful use of San Francisco locations; the now-famous car chase is still exciting and well-directed and edited; McQueen isn't as bad as he usually is (his face actually changes expression once or twice); Bissett is badly used--but at least she's there; Simon Oakland gives a good performance as a police chief and Vaughn is excellent. It's also fun to see Robert Duvall (with hair as a cab driver), Norman Fell (another police chief) and Georg Stanford Brown (as a doctor) in small roles.
I'm giving this a 6 and that's mostly for Vaughn, direction and the car chase. Seriously...without the chase this movie would have been forgotten.