Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

Absolutely Fantastic

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Before I talk about this pilot movie for "Starsky and Hutch", I have an important confession....I have never seen the ensuing TV series. Yep, I was certainly old enough to watch it...just never did. However, my curiosity was piqued because this movie was an installment of "The ABC Movie of the Week"...and I've watched several dozen of these movies recently on YouTube. However, this pilot was not on YouTube (probably for copyright reasons), so I saw it on the first disc for the TV series...and it's available through Netflix.The show begins with two tough assassins killing a young couple making out in a cool looking red and white Ford Torino. Why is the car important? It's the spitting image of Starsky's car and the cops immediately wonder if the murderers were actually trying to kill Starsky (Paul Michael Glaser) and Hutch (David Soul). Through the course of most of the film, the two detectives look for their would- be murderer...until they realize that the killings and motivations weren't exactly what they first thought.This is a reasonably good cop film made for television...but never once did it scream out "This is so good it MUST become a TV series"! In the case of "The Six Million Dollar Man", the pilot movies clearly DID and were very unique and compelling. This film, on the other hand was good...but not great. Worth seeing but nothing particularly memorable.By the way, when the two assassins are in their hotel room, I did enjoy seeing one of them (Richard Lynch) reading "The Age of Voltaire"...a very large and cerebral sort of book. This guy was no dummy and proves just how far in life you can go if you exercise your mind. Sadly, in a scene soon after this, you see the guy shoot at Hutch and the nearby car explodes...which was pretty stupid (and next to impossible).

If only the subsequent episodes had been as good as the pilot. OK, the first season showed promise, but after that the series degenerated into a parody of itself. But the pilot for Starsky and Hutch was, at its time, the grittiest cop show that had been on TV (the pilot premiered as one of those ABC made-for-TV "Movies of the Week" during the 70s). This Starsky and Hutch is dark and violent, but not without a sense of humor. The dialog is above average, the story is actually pretty good, and Soul and Glaser both do a fine job as two tough plainclothes cops of the "cowboy" type that some big city departments have (as opposed to the standard suit-and-tie detectives). They're also believable as friends, and it's that chemistry that kept the show going even after the writers had long since run out of ideas. This pilot took it's cues from uber-violent 70s cop movies like Dirty Harry. To give you an idea, in the opening sequence you witness two hit men blow away two kids in a car..at point blank range. Even though it was the days before showing gore and blood splattering on TV was commonplace, that scene is disturbing. As things turn out, it looks like Starsky and Hutch were the actual targets. The two wade through the seedy streets (and the various shady characters and street stoolies) of the unnamed Southern California metropolis where they work, looking for answers as to who is trying to kill them and why.

When a car just like Starsky's is the target of a hit, the police suspect that the target was really Starsky and Hutch. The two cops decide to stay on the street and try to find out who wants them dead and why. However their informants tell them a much deeper tale.The pilot for the original show doesn't have the cool music but it does have everything else that gave birth to the cult TV show. The plot isn't exactly going to set the world on fire but it is passable. However it does allow plenty of chance for Starsky to crack wise, Hutch to look good for the ladies, Huggy Bear to be cool and Dobey to shout and be gruff.The action is very basic but is still fun – however it's hard to ascertain how good it would be if it wasn't already a cult classic. Soul is good and was always my mum's favourite – however I always preferred Glaser as the witty Starsky (and it was his car!). it's hard to imagine the world without Huggy Bear – and Fargas is still making a living off that one role all these years later!Overall it's not as good as the TV show itself but this pilot has much in common with it and is well worth a watch – if only for the car, the jokes and those terrible cardigans.

this is the pilot for the t.v series Starsky and Hutch. it has a great story as the detectives search for the two hit men hired to kill them. best line in movie has Starsky asking Hutch "who are we suposed to trust?" Hutch replies "me and thee".these two guys really care about each other,which is what made the following series so great.