So much average

One of the worst movies I've ever seen

Absolutely Brilliant!

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Burt Reynolds really channels a young Marlon Brando in this film. He plays Lt. Phil Gains and is a cool character who doesn't like to get too close to people(he has a penchant for 30's style music and vernacular). He lives with his girlfriend, played by Catherine Deneuve, who happens to be a Call Girl but neither of them are willing to give up the dangers(mental and physical) of their careers. However, they dream about running off to Europe. It's as if they are afraid of what will happen if they do.To sum it up, Gains is called in to investigate the body of a young girl found dead on a beach. It is ruled a suicide but the girl's parents, mainly her father, refuse to believe it. The father, played by actor Ben Johnson, is seeking revenge and Gains wants to be one step ahead of him. To me, the standout in this film is actor Eddie Albert, who I've always had a crush on. This is probably the creepiest role he ever played. He's a lawyer with mob connections and won't let anyone stand in his way. He is also a client of Deneuve's character and grins ear-to-ear when talking about the dead girl and the pleasure he and friends got from her. We're talking HUGE creep factor here. In one scene he refers to the girl by saying "She could get milk out of a crowbar." Don't think I need to explain THAT line. This film is the typical 1970's cop film with lounge jazz music playing over a car scene. Pretty tame by today's standards but did earn an R-rating. There is reference to a porno film that is supposed to feature Albert's character Leo Sellers(again pushing that creep factor up!). "Hustle" is probably one of Burt's more forgettable films but it is fun to see him take to a role so seriously after seeing him in Smokey and his other action films.

One of those "stick with it" kind of movies. After the success of the universally entertaining THE LONGEST YARD, director Robert Aldrich reteams with Burt Reynolds in a steamy/gritty cop melodrama that takes a little while to get going.Reynolds is Phil Gaines, a bitter, worldweary detective who, living with a high priced prostitute, doesn't live the typical law and order existence. After the dead body of a drugged young girl turns up on the beach, Gaines and his partner, Paul Winfield's Belgrave, write it off as suicide. But a stubborn, unglued war veteran father, played with a frantic energy by Ben Johnson as Marty, can't let go.Overlong scenes where Burt and hooker girlfriend Nicole – played by Catherine Deneuve – involved in tedious bouts of pillow talk (especially during the first ten minutes) distract from the real stuff: Gaines and Belgrave forced to take the investigation seriously as Marty (the father) sneaks around a local mob-run strip club for answers, stalking a seedy high profile lawyer played by YARD villain Eddie Albert.Essential action scenes are thrown in whenever necessary, and yet beneath the surface is character-study of a cop discovering the truth of a victim who, having been involved in stripping and hardcore porn, wasn't very innocent to begin with. Conversations where Reynolds and Winfield discuss the validity of the case and the futility of life, while delving into pop culture movies and music, are the highlight.A clean-shaven Reynolds, a few years shy of the signature mustache and mainstream stardom, is fitfully forlorn as a man lost in the Film Noir haze, and director Robert Aldrich makes even the slower parts interesting except those conversations with Deneuve: As a love interest, she's just not interesting.And despite a tacked-on tragic finale, this cop/melodrama feels more like reading than watching – a good thing provided you won't be able to put this down once it picks up.

2 out of 5 (points off for sagging and failing to connect the characters with the plot, therefore pissing me off). Initially, the striking resemblance between the young Burt Reynolds and a young Marlon Brando caused such a distraction that it was a challenge not to try to stick an orange in his mouth and make him say "Respeck me, respeck the family" .But then Reynolds' eyebrows started acting up.Burt's eyebrows have such an amazing screen presence of their own it becomes difficult to focus on anything else. If they aren't insured I don't know what is (see also Tom Selleck's moustache for hairy trade marks. {Incidentally my spell check offers 'Saltlick' as a substitute to Selleck…Tom Saltlick}). Watch Reynolds in this film as he winces in a desperate attempt to restrain his eyebrows; the concentration on his face is amazing. Those eyebrows seem to have the ability to go all the way up and over his head to meet his arse like some cheeky Mexicans crossing a border.I have a theory that Reynolds had to grow his big moustache which we all know him for to counter balance the gravitational pull of his brows. Anyway…this film; almost really good. Paul Winfield (Chekov's captain in the 'Wrath of Khan') puts in a great performance as Reynolds' partner. Did I mention that Reynolds and Winfield play really rubbish cops? That's the mainstay of this film. These guys think that being a cop involves sitting in their office having a bitch about the world while drinking whisky from their filing cabinet; "What's this? The father of his dead child cares about her death? For Gods sake! What the hell does he have? Emotion? And he wants us to do what? Investigate? What a bastard." That wasn't a quote, even though it had quotation marks. My favourite quote comes from Winfield's character, who is inexplicably interrogating an albino black person for no reason. Yes. An albino black person. With an awesome white afro. For no reason. He beats the apologetic albino in question and yells "you chalky mother f*?ker!" at him, which I have appropriated as my new favourite insult. Later on we learn that he's trying to single-handedly cut down the worldwide albino population. It's good to have a hobby I suppose, although it has nothing to do with the plot (very few characters in this film do, including our protagonists and most of the antagonists).When you can draw your eyes away from Reynolds eyebrows (something he himself tries to do constantly) you can definitely notice the Foley artist hard at work. One scene had Reynolds' hooker girlfriend brush her hair which sounds like she was tearing newspaper, or when a guy walks across a boat deck sounding like he's Mr. Tumnus tap dancing on the roof of a garden shed.Burt's girlfriend in this film is some kind of sexual businessperson who likes to sleep with old people for money, and takes "interesting" phone calls on Burt's funky telephone (that's not a euphemism). He doesn't mind though, presumably because of the two crazy eyebrows he has to deal with, which he probably calls his 'twins'. I have to say I have never been confident on the phone, and so don't phone the 'sex lines', however if I did, and had to pay for it, then I wouldn't want the kind of indifference that this woman deals out to her clients, I get enough of that in real life. She actually ends one saucy phone encounter with "…and there you go" like she's just solved a sudoku puzzle. Sexy.Overall this is a good film with good performances from everyone, but the script seems to be confused. The message seems to be that if you are a nobody then nobody cares. Unless you're an eyebrow.To be honest I watched an episode of Magnum PI, incidentally starring 'Tom Saltlick', called 'Way of the Stalking Horse' (season 6) which was stylistically similar to this film. It was gritty and dark, but just plain better. And shorter.As a geeky side note; a security guard confuses Magnum with Burt Reynolds in the season 7 episode of Magnum P.I called 'L.A' …and Tom Saltlick's eyebrows don't dance on his face like two drunk monkeys at a rave.Ross @ www.musiconthemoon.com

'Hustle' is an overlooked film, though it is easy to see why.Stylistically it is very low-key with no notable flourishes or tricksiness. It boasts little in the way of 'action'. A hostage situation sequence seems to have been added purely to provide something in that line for fidgety Burt fans. It is profoundly cynical and resolutely (almost excessively) downbeat. But it is also very thoughtful, atmospheric, well acted and absorbing. A kind of modern dress companion piece to 'Chinatown'. And whilst not quite achieving the force and subtlety of that film, it remains highly creditable.Reynolds is effective as the world weary cop in love with a French prostitute, a cipher whom Deneuve turns into a real person. Her character represents some sort of unattainable, glamorous continental dream to the policeman. This idea is explored and reinforced by numerous references and allusions to European cinema, culture and locale.Burt looks uncannily like a youthful Brando and brings great restraint to a role which could have been horribly over-played. Ben Johnson, Eileen Brennan and Paul Winfield also all give good performances as beaten, screwed-up people. The outstanding turn, though, comes from Edward Albert as Leo Sellers, a wealthy and powerful businessman with dubious tastes and connections. This character is key to Steve Shagan's screenplay in the same way that John Huston's Noah Cross was to Robert Towne's 'Chinatown'. A persona symbolic of corruption and degeneracy, but also integral to the prosperity of the society he is such a part of. Sellers is a refined, intelligent man with a keen eye for people's weak spots and fingers deft enough to push all of their buttons at once. Mr. Albert brings him to life with a palpable evil.'Hustle' is a film that I like to reacquaint myself with from time to time. Whilst Shagan's script is occasionally a tad overblown and too fruity for its own good, there are some great lines and moments. For me, it's noirish exploration of thwarted romanticism is pretty much irresistible.A minor classic.