Bullitt (Two-Disc Special Edition)
by Mimi Freedman, Peter Yates
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Actor: Don Gordon, Jacqueline Bisset, Robert Vaughn, Simon Oakland, Steve McQueenDirector: Mimi Freedman, Peter Yates
Brand: Warner Brothers
Writer: Mimi Freedman
Producer: Hillard Elkins
Producer: Julie Frankel
Writer: Alan Trustman
Writer: Harry Kleiner
Writer: Robert L. Fish
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; French (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 1.0
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 113 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-05-31
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Warner Home Video
DVD Reviews of Bullitt (Two-Disc Special Edition)
DVD Review: The Last reason to watch.
Summary: 2 Stars
Why do people continue to watch and purchase this over-rated movie. In asking this loaded question I will give you one more reason to watch it, one last time.
Top reasons to watch this movie. 1) A 1967 Dodge Charger gets destroyed, 2) Steve McQueen, 3) a car chase through the streets of San Francisco. 4) The "Bullit" Mustang. 5) The Historical value as a record of the late 60's street scenes (cars and buildings). 6) The "Tough Cop" story with violence and social issues. 7)Because you saw it as a kid. 8) because you are at a friends house and he saw it as a kid. 9) because it's the only movie you own and you can't get out of the house or turn off the DVD player. 10) because you read this review, and want to know if I am exaggerating.
First off, just because a movie has a poor story and many technical problems (other than being dated and weak), is still no reason to give it a bad review. The real issue here is whether the movie delivers what it says its selling. You wouldn't sign a deed for a Volkswagen after dishing out for a Ferrari would you?
1) A 1967 Dodge Charger gets destroyed. The single greatest car destruction is of a Charger launching into a gas station and it is played in fast motion. This is lame. If you want to see it and enjoy it, you will need to use the DVD slow-mo function. Perhaps this is why it is worth owning on DVD. After all, most VCRs are not very steady on slow mo, especially on old tapes.
2) Steve McQueen. He's cool, for many that will be "Nuf sed". He's got a great "Hollywood Ugly" look. Sad puppy-dog eyes and just enough cragginess and weariness to make him seem like he understands our pain. His look was perfect for The Great Escape. In this story he is really the only thing worth watching. The rest are made for TV fixtures and "b" list actors.
3) A car chase through the streets of San Francisco. Yes the cars go up and down hills and around corners. But no sense of place (other than it looks like San Francisco). It seems like maybe they didn't spend too much on shooting permits. "Lets just do this. We can move the background cars and they can go around the same corner again. We're banking on Steve McQueen here, not doing rocket science." And to make the movie completely useless for anyone who only cares about "that great car chase", this single chase scene is so full of technical problems it is nearly impossible to enjoy. It's the worst kind of car-porn. All the story is fluff leading up to a single car chase that is badly shot with obvious continuity and technical problems. It's like they didn't bother watching their dailies and just tried to fixed everything in post. They didn't worry about slight technical things like "the black tire marks are still on the road from the last take" or "no one will notice if a dark green car has dent in the rear corner, we'll just edit around it." The Mustang runs around (from the beginning of the movie) with a big dent in the rear passenger quarter. However, many of the chase scenes clearly show a clean panel there, both before and after it hits the parked car that is responsible for the dent. As they say, the devil's in the details, and yes, we do notice them, that's why we haven't seen this movie for a while.
4) The "Bullit" Mustang. Yes, it is a 1967 dark green Mustang Fastback with cool wheels. Very nice. It is not the star of the movie. We see its dented body a few times and Steve pulls up to the hospital in it. It is not shot meticulously from low angles and we don't get too much of a feeling of speed. After all, its not the car that was cool, it was Steve McQueen. "Bullit" was Steve's character's name. And no, it's not a nickname, it's just his last name. No, not quite as exciting as you thought.
5) The Historical value as a record of the late 60's street scenes (cars and buildings). Well, if you believe that everyone drove brand new cars (and mostly the same ones) and there were no ghettos and people only wore proper business attire to do their grocery shopping, then this might make a wonderful 8th grade social-studies history source. That is provided your history teacher is under 20 and believes everything that the mainstream media had to say about life in the late 1960's. Of course, this movie was shot in 1967, the year before Robert Kennedy and MLK were bumped off, so everything was perfect, right?. As for the cars and buildings, the buildings are fine, but we get no sense of where we are in relation to anything (where is the Golden Gate, etc). And as for the cars, extra lame. They used one or two cars and moved them around in the background. They were nothing special or particularly authentic looking either. They use the (exact) same Fords, Chevs and Dodges in every background, and every one is Plain-Jane and brand new. You might like to look at a brand new 1967 beige Camaro in the year it was built, but how many times, and who cares? It looks like the big three loaned them their cheapest models, either to save money or to make sure there was nothing special about them so they would "blend in". Well, mission accomplished. So, if you are watching this movie for "car candy", don't bother. The same three cars are shown over and over, and they are nothing special. This movie stinks of "high-dollar low budget". Every expense was spared. There are no recognizable buildings and the repeated use of several props and locations.
6) The "Tough Cop" story with violence and social issues. If you like to see people blown away by shot guns in glorious Technicolor, well, you'll have to watch closely. The only scene with real violence is an informant who gets blasted in a sleazy non-descript hotel room. But we don't see the blast. No squibs here. Close up shot gun blast, close up, fast motion of body movement with red stuff on front. Pull back, actor slumps while holding wound and dies quietly. I'm not a fan of gore, but again this movie promises seriousness and "grittiness" yet delivers short cuts and half measures. Better not to show it at all than do a bad job with poor editing. As for social issues, it tacks on "race relations" with a sledge hammer. It talks about corruption, but does not dare to criticize "the system" or "establishment" in any real way. It tacks on all of the fashionable concerns of the era (late 60's), race relations, government corruption etc, while not saying a thing about them.
7) Because you saw it as a kid. You probably remember that cool car and how cool it looked and sounded. The best shot of the movie is a "camera car" tracking shot of the Mustang with Steve McQueen driving. It's about 10 seconds long and they do it twice. This is as good as it gets. It looks OK and sounds OK. Any Mustang AD in the day would look and sound as good (or better), and we wouldn't have to sit through another hour and a half of unrelated material. Also, people have said the sound is great, wrong. The sound effects are (slightly) out of whack with the action. When the Mustang passes the Charger (it looks like they used the same shot more than once), the sound of the Mustang's engine seems to sit on top of the action much the way some of the dialogue seems to have that "over-processed" quality of being "fixed in post" or over-dubbed. The engine sounds "tough" but it clearly doesn't originate with the action. The revving sounds indicate that the car is being "double clutched"-something you might need to do in an older car-but it doesn't match the action. The car is clearly and smoothly accelerating continuously past the other car, he's not in the middle of a shift. And the sound contains no ambient qualities. In other words, there is no slight Doppler shift or any other movement-related effects that you might hear under exterior viewing conditions while moving at high speeds down a highway. Details make it worth re-watching, eh?
8) Because you are at a friends house and he saw it as a kid. He might have liked the fabulous acting and great story, but he might not have seen it recently. The acting is all second-rate. Steve McQueen stands there and says nothing the entire time. Oh he looks good, he always looked good. But we are nearly as frustrated as his middle class girl with her hippie style. She (and we) can't seem to make a connection to this "strong silent type". He lacks any reason for any real angst. He's good looking, tall, white and smart, or at least self-assured. He caries a gun and drives a brand new Mustang. He has an interesting job and he's good at it. But I guess he's seen a lot of bad things in his time, "The kind of ugliness that eats away at a man". Except that doesn't seem to be a detriment in his job description. He's the one that can handle the dead bodies and protects his sensitive girlfriend (you know, the middle class one with the hippie sense of style). Jeez, come to think of it, most of Bullit's problems seem to be left to our imagination. I wonder if we are supposed to identify with this emotionally detached man and his young lady? Wow, this movie talks right to me. I'm like, totally just like Steve McQueen. And my girl, she says I keep everything bottled up too! Boy what a good movie. They sure got me pegged.
9) Because it's the only movie you own and you can't get out of the house or turn off the DVD player. Well then, you're probably not reading this then. If you are, good for you. Now throw it away and stop telling your friends how much you liked it.
10) And the number 10 reason to watch this movie: Because you want to know if I am exaggerating about how bad it is. Here's the big Question: why do people still keep watching it (and paying $25 for every new DVD release) if it's no good? The biggest risk I am taking is that you will have such a low opinion of this movie that you will either seek it out (in order to "prove" me wrong), or you will have such a low opinion that if you ever do see it (see reason 8) you will say "it wasn't that bad. So here goes. It is not bad enough to hate (or really laugh at), it's simply not good enough to continue to pay top DVD prices at Wal-Mart every time they re-release the bloody thing! It's not bad enough to be funny. It plays like a terribly-earnest made-for-TV movie. It has a preachy quality while saying nothing. So there is no reason to go back and watch this movie other than "everyone always mentions it so I better see it in order to know what they are talking about". It lacks the basics. It lacks characters depth, plot complexity, and theme development. And as icing on the cake, the soundtrack is completely forgettable. The directing and editing and sound are all poor (even though they are over processed, and therefore costly in the day, they are not interesting, enjoyable, or memorable, especially by today's standards.) They clearly paid nothing for copyrights (no music of the day); there aren't even any product placements to watch for (except for the three cars they keep in circulation). The sets and exterior shots are all irrelevant and contribute nothing to any particular "look" or "feel" that might help to establish a theme or a mood. And the lone car chase (the only real thing defended by anyone in any review) is so riddled with problems and meaningless shifts that it is barely tolerable on first viewing, let alone a second one.
So please, if you are going to review this movie, watch it first so that you may give the most honest and most informed review (or rebuttal to this review) that you can, rather than going on old feelings and memories. But, having presented this challenge, I have given you one last reason to watch this, and I really don't recommend that at all.
Description of Bullitt (Two-Disc Special Edition)
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