In the lead role of Steve Burns, the cop who goes undercover, is Al Pacino who does a rather good job at becoming this guy who is forced to explore a part of society that he would not, along with being able to convey how this job is affecting him which more or less is done with subtext, which might be a turn off with this film since it really doesn't explain all that much unless you're actively looking for it. The rest of the cast works too, especially cameos from pre-fame people like Powers Boothe as a cashier talking about what color hankies in which back pockets mean and a blink and you'll miss it appearance from Ed O'Neil as one of the detectives during the interrogation scene, which had to be one of the more out there scenes of the movie. I'll get onto that later but I also have to give credit to Joe Spinell who is fantastic in this as usual but I wish that he had been in the movie more and I didn't realize that James Remar was in this too since I recognized him but couldn't put a name to it.
I do have a major problem with this film though and it does detract from it all and what could have been a really good movie and that is the whole flow of the story. Often times, it feels like plot points are abandoned and brought up at the last possible moment to resolve them a bit. The earliest example of that is the Joe Spinell character , who is one of the first characters introduced in the movie where he and his partner pick up two transgender prostitutes and force them to give them sexual favors. One of the prostitutes tells this to the police chief in exchange for any information regarding the murder case and until the end, the plot point only comes up twice in passing. The first being one of the times the Steve Burns character is in one of the clubs and he spots Spinell among the crowd and the last being the prostitute asking whether or not they figured out which cop it was. The whole undercover plot goes nowhere as well since after the interrogation scene, it just goes into this plot where Burns follows this one suspect and it goes into some of the life of this guy and implies that he is the killer. It's not like I don't like that point, it's just it kind of feels like the story is thrown together which does make the implication in the end kind of not make sense. I get what Friedkin was trying to do but it just doesn't make any sense. Whether or not a longer cut would help the film is anyone's guess but I'm curious what the longer cut would be since one of the more entertaining stories from the Friedkin Connection book was involving the initial screening of the to the film board or studio execs, where he made a cut where he shows the worst things he can (mainly lots of hardcore sex) so that he could get the cut he wants since it'll look less shocking in comparison. The soundtrack is fun though and I wish I knew more about it although it was done by Jack Nitzsche, who also did the non Tubular Bells score for The Exorcist, I'd recommend the soundtrack a lot if you enjoy the late 70's, early 80's punk and hard rock scene. So if I have to say how I feel about this movie, I feel like there is a good movie in this but it just needed to be a little more concise in terms of the plotting to make it work. It probably is my least favorite of his films that I have seen but I kind of think that there might be worse that I'll see, but I'll give it another watch just for the score and the interrogation scene alone.
I do have a major problem with this film though and it does detract from it all and what could have been a really good movie and that is the whole flow of the story. Often times, it feels like plot points are abandoned and brought up at the last possible moment to resolve them a bit. The earliest example of that is the Joe Spinell character , who is one of the first characters introduced in the movie where he and his partner pick up two transgender prostitutes and force them to give them sexual favors. One of the prostitutes tells this to the police chief in exchange for any information regarding the murder case and until the end, the plot point only comes up twice in passing. The first being one of the times the Steve Burns character is in one of the clubs and he spots Spinell among the crowd and the last being the prostitute asking whether or not they figured out which cop it was. The whole undercover plot goes nowhere as well since after the interrogation scene, it just goes into this plot where Burns follows this one suspect and it goes into some of the life of this guy and implies that he is the killer. It's not like I don't like that point, it's just it kind of feels like the story is thrown together which does make the implication in the end kind of not make sense. I get what Friedkin was trying to do but it just doesn't make any sense. Whether or not a longer cut would help the film is anyone's guess but I'm curious what the longer cut would be since one of the more entertaining stories from the Friedkin Connection book was involving the initial screening of the to the film board or studio execs, where he made a cut where he shows the worst things he can (mainly lots of hardcore sex) so that he could get the cut he wants since it'll look less shocking in comparison. The soundtrack is fun though and I wish I knew more about it although it was done by Jack Nitzsche, who also did the non Tubular Bells score for The Exorcist, I'd recommend the soundtrack a lot if you enjoy the late 70's, early 80's punk and hard rock scene. So if I have to say how I feel about this movie, I feel like there is a good movie in this but it just needed to be a little more concise in terms of the plotting to make it work. It probably is my least favorite of his films that I have seen but I kind of think that there might be worse that I'll see, but I'll give it another watch just for the score and the interrogation scene alone.
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