A waste of 90 minutes of my life

A Masterpiece!

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

"Mystery Science Theater 3000" was all about making fun of bad movies. And, since they made a bunch of installments of the show, they had to find a lot of terrible films to tear to pieces. Sometimes, however, they took poor to mediocre films and gave them the full treatment--and folks just assumed that the films were trash. And, sadly, I think a lot of people who saw these films chopped up and made fun of then voted on IMDb. This would account for films like "The Girl in Gold Boots" (a poor film, but actually one of the better ones by Ted Mikels) and "Mitchell" making IMDb's infamous Bottom 100 list. "Mitchell" is clearly NOT a terrible film and is decent entertainment. And, as a guy who has seen more bad films that just about anyone, I could probably name 1000 movies worse than this one without even trying.Joe Don Baker plays a cop who likes to play by his own rules. He's honest but tough and often plays the rogue cop--a very, very common 1970s cop film theme. When he investigates the killing of a burglar, the crime scene doesn't look right and Mitchell (Baker) thinks the homeowner killed the thief in cold blood. This seemingly simple case eventually leads to a heroin smuggling ring and ultimately leads to a showdown with the man in charge.I would never call "Mitchell" a good film. It's a brainless time-passer with lots of action and a few good scenes. Brainless because Mitchell has never heard of the Bill of Rights and because a guy is shot in the head at very, very close range and he barely bleeds--when his head should have exploded since it was an AR-15!!

I saw this as an MST3K episode and to me, the three guys commenting on everything is really annoying, not to mention that they shortened it and kept adding little skits of their own. This all rather ruined the experience. With that in mind, I don't think there is actually that much of a movie to ruin.The story of Mitchell, a boozed up, sleazy, play-by-his-own-rules cop fighting mafia type criminals seems more suitable for a low budget TV show than anything else. The poor acting, the lackluster action, the cliché story line, it' all there, just cobble together an episode each week and you have your show.

Chances are......you saw the MST version. So have I, but do want to get the original. I still expect it to be cheese. But what fun cheese it is, Joe Don Baker IS Mitchell, who seems to solve crimes by accident. Nobody like him, he doesn't like anybody and yet he gets the job done. Will booze stop him? NO!! Not so bad-ass mobsters? NO!! John Saxon?? NO!! Merlin Olsen comes close but even misses the mark (send him a pick me up bouquet or something) And Greta who keeps sleeping with him despite being busted constantly. Who does like Mitchell? The MST fans themselves. If it wasn't for them this film would be nowhere to be found, rotting away in 99 cent bins at the video store until there are no videotapes left (you think that they would release this on DVD without MST?)

How many people who laugh at this film have actually seen it complete? I don't think very many since this film was used as one of the funniest episodes of Mystery Science 3000. But even I have to admit that when you remove a third or more of a movie its very easy to make fun of it.Thats a shame because as exploitation films from the 1970's go this one is one of the best. No it won't win an award but its unrepentant trash with sexist remarks and dopey action. Joe Don Baker was never a great actor but he could turn in a good exploitation performance before becoming simply a cartoon character.If you're in the mood for a good mindless action film give this a try. Its better than you think and certainly better that being near the bottom of a worst film of all time list.