I am pretty excited for tonight’s movie, if only because I have absolutely no idea what to expect. I know that Steve McQueen is probably one of the coolest actors in old Hollywood, but beyond the trailer (which gives absolutely nothing away about the story, unlike a lot of today’s trailers), the only thing I know about this movie is that he drives a classic Mustang. I haven’t seen a lot of McQueen movies outside of “The Great Escape” and “The Magnificent Seven”, but those two are some of my favorite films so I’m pretty intrigued about what the legend can do without the ensemble cast behind him. Here is the trailer, and I’ll be back in a couple of hours.
I am not a professional blogger, movie critic, or historian. I am not hugely aware of how things were in the late 1960’s when this movie came out. So, in a lot of ways, I am speaking out of a comparison to how movies are now as opposed to how they were made a half-century ago. But this movie was definitely not something I am used to seeing, and I don’t know if that is necessarily a bad thing. It’s definitely a good movie, but one really has to keep the era in which this was made at the forefront of their mind.
First, lets talk about the Steve McQueen’s performance. He plays Frank Bullitt, a no nonsense cop who plays by his own rules. He was, in a lot of ways, the typical 80’s trope 12 years ahead of his time. His performance is definitely strong here, and you can see why he was the box office draw of his generation. His death in 1980 at the age of 50 was supremely unfortunate, as he likely would’ve given ole Clint Eastwood a run for his money on acting into his 80s and 90s.
The rest of the cast was probably a huge deal in 1968, but in 2020 I don’t recognize a lot of their names (outside of a supremely young Robert Duvall). I don’t mean to downplay their performances; they were good, it just is really hard to judge the quality of acting in this era vs. the one I’ve become accustomed to.
Next point I’d like to bring up is the soundtrack and the audio. There is almost no background music, and most of the sound of the day-to-day activities is perfectly audible. From the hospital machines beeping to the cars backfiring, to the mundane conversations everyone as on the phones to make sure they are in constant communication, this film fully uses the sound of everyday life to generate a sense of procedural monotony to this otherwise fast-paced mobster movie. Again, I don’t know if it was the intent, but the lack of background music REALLY brings home the amount of information that is needed to be recorded for a detective to properly do his job.
Finally, I would be failing at this if i didn’t bring up his awesome Mustang. In the past year, the car has been found in a garage and sold for $3.4 million, along with a limited rerelease from Ford. After seeing this movie, it is totally worth the fuss, because that car is awesome. It is almost worth watching the movie for the chase scene alone. The fact that they could do the chase as well as they could with the technology at the time is amazing.
All-in-all, a pretty good film that any movie-lover should check out. It isn’t as fast paced as modern films, and the technical aspects definitely don’t measure up, but adjusted for the techniques at the time, this movie is entertaining. For anyone who enjoys the near-mythology of Steve McQueen, this is a must-watch.
Ain't That Bad - Movie Blog 