Review of Bullitt (1968) by Gareth R — 12 May 2010

Bullitt was a pretty influential movie. Its presentation of cops, as young guys who have a problem with authority, has affected TV shows, movies, even video games for decades. Maybe that's why, seeing it for the first time in 2010, it seems like an episode of some bog-standard cop show. What was remarkable then is utterly commonplace now, and that's going to harm movies like Bullitt for future generations like me.

It's reasonably entertaining, if a little hard to follow. The opening credits are imaginatively done - so much so that they almost distracted me from what was going on. The direction is skilful. Certain scenes are tense. But the overall movie seems just a bit too blasé to really grip the audience. Even the famous car chase - which, if you haven't seen it, will be the only bit you've heard of - isn't all it's cracked up to be. Revolutionary? Quite possibly. But it's not 1968 any more, and there have been a hell of a lot of car chases in movies since then.

Anyway, the improbably-named Frank Bullitt (Steve McQueen) is charged with protecting a witness, and that's essentially it, apart from all the complicated stuff surrounding it. McQueen breezes through the film with a kind of glazed expression, and his girlfriend (Jacqueline Bisset) tries to make something of his apathy, but the film is in no mood to think about this for too long. It's the only real bit of character development in the movie, and it's referred to on Wikipedia as a minor subplot, which is about right.

Robert Vaughan steps on McQueen's toes as a snooty official, but McQueen's so icy cool all the time that there's not much antagonism there. A lot of the other characters look the same. Robert Duvall's in it as a cabbie, and he has about two lines.

Feh. It's not bad, it's exciting in places, but it goes on a little long. Honestly, it's too middle-of-the-road to analyse any further. I caught myself thinking I might tune in next week, before I remembered this was a standalone movie, which must count as some kind of compliment.