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Fuzz
The wacky hijinx of a cwazy police precint!
1972
Review: March 12, 2006
Director: Richard A. Colla
Starring: Burt Reynolds, Tom Skerritt, Racquel Welch, Yul Brenner
Might make this seem better than it is.
THE SETUP:
It’s the Altman n’ Soda treatment for this loose comedy about a wacky, wacky police precinct.
DISCUSSION:
I don’t know what possessed me to watch this. Probably back after I watched some Burt Reynolds movie and put a bunch of his other flicks on my list. Strangely, this arrived at the same time as What’s the Matter With Helen?, and I found out from the IMDb that the two films were released as a double feature back in the day. I can hardly imagine what they share that they should be grouped, but whatever.
This is adapted from one of the 87th Precinct series of novels by Ed McBain, who is also known as Evan Hunter, who wrote the screenplays for The Birds and Marnie, and also the novel The Blackboard Jungle. This movie also features music by Dave Grusin.
I watched this movie in several parts. During the first half hour I was fairly into it and surprised that it wasn’t what I expected, but once I turned it off I found I dreaded returning to it, and didn’t enjoy the last hour nearly as much. It would seem that some guy is demanding money from the Boston police’s 87th precinct, or he’ll kill some public figure or other. At first you’re watching this like ‘WHAT is going on here?,’ because everyone’s talking at once and you have three different scenes going on at the same time in the same frame, but then you realize that the director is going for a sort of Altman & Soda effect to capture the everyday texture of life in an underfunded police district.
Burt Reynolds is his usual cocky self, whose charm has worn off on me, and who’s high-pitched phony laugh is enough to make one wish to bludgeon him. Racquel Welch comes into the office and is promptly leered at by every man on hand, but it turns out that she’s coming to work at the precinct. If you think you are soon to be subjected to the sort of “the guys make fun of her, but she has brass balls and earns their respect” kind of arc over the movie, you’d be right. You’d probably also be bored. A young Tom Skerritt is also on hand, sans mustache, which kept me from recognizing him for several minutes. And there’s a bunch of other character actors you’ll probably also recognize.
So the villain is demanding money to be dropped off in a park, and the police of course fill a bag with a wooden block and hide out to see who comes to pick it up. Only their idea of “hiding out” is to crouch behind this wall in plain view of everyone. It’s ludicrous. There’s also, over the course of the many repetitive scenes, the parts where they dress as bums and old ladies and nuns and hang out in the park waiting for the blackmailer. We see Burt Reynolds, mustache and all, dressed as a nun, which I guess is supposed to be funny. Such is the wacky, wacky sense of humor on display here.
It advances predictably, the highs, the lows, the cares, the woes, until you the viewer are like “Don’t I have to do my taxes or something?” The only meager interest is the Altman-lite approach it takes, and one has adjusted to that within 20 minutes, leaving 70 to go.
The only reasons I can think of to watch this are to see the rather quaint methods of the police in the 70s, which seem pathetically naïve now, and, if you live in Boston, for the extensive coverage you get of that city in the early 70s. Other than that, your time could be much better spent whacking off.
SHOULD YOU WATCH IT?
If I had it all to do over again, I wouldn’t.
