To me, this movie is perfection.

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

Blistering performances.

Right, well for some reason the "Sharky's Machine" had managed to elude me up until now. I got a chance to sit down and watch it, so I did. Of course, why wouldn't I? I mean, this is Burt Reynolds at the prime of his career. So what could possibly go wrong here?I managed to endure 50 minutes of this ordeal of a movie, before giving up out of utter boredom. Nothing, and I do mean nothing literally, happened at all, except for the beginning of the movie.I have no idea what this movie was about aside from Burt Reynolds playing a police man named Sharky whom was transferred to a different department after a civilian got injured because of his recklessness.No intention of returning to finish this snoozefest of a movie to finish watching it. The movie just had absolutely zero appeal to me.

Burt Reynolds directs himself as an Atlanta cop investigating prostitution ring tied to a political candidate. My favorite scene in "Sharky's Machine" came early on, when Reynolds's character gets demoted to the vice squad and walks down to the bottom floor, finding what the vice squad looks like (and showing how it reflects all the sleazy stuff that they have to investigate). That scene is merely an introduction to the slimy things that Sharky and his colleagues will come across over the course of the movie.I suspect that a lot of the scenes of Rachel Ward half-dressed will interest people, but those are more peripheral to the movie's action. The environs of Atlanta set the stage for all manner of lowlife activity. And when I say lowlife, I mean that there are some INTENSE scenes. It's not any kind of great movie but I enjoyed it.The rest of the cast includes Vittorio Gassman, Charles Durning, Bernie Casey and Brian Keith.

This is a movie, like The Godfather and Apocalypse Now, that I've seen a million times, and still enjoy popping in the DVD player every now and then.It's got everything, great script, characters, film score, camera work, etc. Burt Reynolds surrounded himself with excellent people, and they created a real gem. The supporting cast in particular, are the highlight of this film. Bernie Casey is a real standout, as the detective Arch. Low key, yet memorable portrayal with lots of nuances in his character. Totally owns all of his scenes.Sharky's team of investigators, Henry Silva as the drug addicted assassin, and Rachel Ward turn in superb performances as well. Can't leave out the late great Dar Robinson either, doing the spectacular fall from the Atlanta Hyatt Regency.

I have always been a huge Burt Reynolds fan, I've always admired his humility and his way of engaging with the audience be it as actor or Director.The film opens to the enchanting tones of Randy Crawford signing Street life, incidentally the film ends on a duet to what closely must resemble the sound of the emasculation of two cats with a blunt knife.Anyway Sharky is demoted to Vice when 'he' messed up a drug bust. Down in Vice is where we meet the gang who all add wonderful dimensions to this film and each shines in his role, Charles Durning is hilarious he screams with such intensity you really become concerned for his blood pressure.Just when it looks like Vice might be boring a whole can of worms opens up when they begin to stake out some 'High class' call girls (the stake out is a little long almost in real time), the plot involves a puppet politician and the puppet master played amazingly by the one and only Vittorio Gassman.Sharky starts to fall for 'Dominoe' (gorgeous but she's gotta give up the cigarettes she sounds like the Bouvier sisters from the Simpsons) one of the 'High Class' call girls, incidentally Burt Fell for another 'High Class' call girl in 'Hustle'.Burt was very generous with the script he gave some of the best stuff to the supporting cast, in actual fact sometimes through the movie in his quest to build Sharky as the strong silent type the lack of script for himself turned Sharky into the strong boring type. This was very apparent when he was finally with Dominoe at his pad, he was pining around like a 13 year old. He couldn't string two words together he just looked bashful so bashful he almost looked mentally challenged, he did everything bar kicking his heels looking at the floor and saying "Gee golly I ain't never done kissed no girl be fower hu hulk".In all it's a very entertaining film, it drags a bit here and there, but it always comes back to life and the last 30 minutes are a roller-coaster, watch out for Henry Silva who plays a whacked out hit man, my favorite scene is when he points his gun at Arch and…..