Review of The Seven-Ups (1973) by Chris W — 30 Oct 2012

Having produced the perennial cop drama classics The French Connection and Bullitt, producer Philip D'Antoni decided to direct his own entry into this genre. Oddly enough, this was his only film as a director for some reason.

The film follows a group of tough cops named after the minimum sentence the majority of the perps they go after would receive for their crimes. They work under the radar, kinda like a black ops group of sorts, and the tactics these guys use rival those of the thugs they're supposed to go after. Man, gotta love the hard-boiled 70s.

The plot is pretty standard, involving the mob, kidnapping, murder, and betrayal, and, while it's not quite as good as the two movies I mentioned earlier, it is nevertheless a pretty solid and enjoyable movie...definitely underrated.

Roy Scheider is in the lead, and, he's as reliable as ever, though, like this, movie, he's still pretty underrated. I unfortunately don't remember much of the performances from the others, but I doubt they were god awful or anything. As good as this movie is, I think what keeps it from being truly great is that it just doesn't have the charm or excitement (overall) to make it truly memorable.

There is one scene, maybe the only scene that most people seem to know of, that really shines. It's a car chase scene, and yes, it is cool. High stakes, high speed, great stunt work, and all done practically. There's some other good scenes, but none ever top this one, but at least it takes place in the middle of the film, instead of forcing the viewer to sit through tons of biuild up and putting it at the very end.

I'm running out of things to say without repeating myself, so let's just leave it as this being a good, though somewhat dull movie that could have been better.