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DVD SAVANT

Hustle


Hustle
Paramount
1975 / Color / 1:85 anamorphic 16:9 / 119 min. / Street Date June 21, 2005 / 14.99
Starring Burt Reynolds, Catherine Deneuve, Ben Johnson, Paul Winfield, Eileen Brennan, Eddie Albert, Ernest Borgnine
Cinematography Joseph F. Biroc
Art Direction Hilyard M. Brown
Film Editor Michael Luciano
Original Music Frank De Vol
Written by Steve Shagan
Produced by Robert Aldrich, Burt Reynolds
Directed by Robert Aldrich

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Robert Aldrich's career got a huge boost from The Longest Yard, made separately from his "Associates and Aldrich" banner but using many of his old collaborators. His plan was to keep producing with Burt Reynolds but their teaming resulted in only one more movie, the interesting Hustle. The slow but engaging detective thriller predates Taxi Driver and Hardcore in its depiction of the harsh fates awaiting young girls in the city.

Synopsis:

LA detective Phil Gaines (Burt Reynolds) lives with prostitute Nicole Britton (Catherine Deneuve) and finds her lifestyle a problem as he gets more serious about her. His latest case is a dead girl washed up on the Malibu shore. He and his partner Louis Belgrave (Paul Winfield) sympathize for the victim's father, Marty Hollinger (Ben Johnson), an old soldier bitter that 'nobodies' like himself are pushed around and ignored by the system. Phil tries to help Marty's wife Paula (Eileen Brennan) but dares not let Marty know the real circumstances of his daughter's death. Officially a drug suicide, she was actually a call girl and porn actress last seen in the company of Leo Sellers (Eddie Albert), a rich but corrupt lawyer entangled in sex parties, adult movies and labor racketeering.

Hustle starts from a scene in Jules Dassin's The Naked City made a generation earlier. An elderly midwestern couple comes to New York to claim the body of their daughter, a good-time girl murdered by drowning in a bathtub. The father says something to the effect of "O Lord, why couldn't she have been born ugly?

Gloria Hollinger probably wasn't murdered, but it makes no difference to her father Marty, a Korean War vet with a chip on his shoulder against the system. Everyone keeps asking if Marty is 'anybody,' just in case his daughter's death might merit a special investigation, but even Marty knows that his needs and feelings will be ignored. He invested his entire failed life in this girl and figures that cops like Phil Gaines are just there to obstruct justice.

Burt Reynolds' Phil Gaines has few answers for Marty, and even fewer for himself. He's one of those modern cops for whom the proven virtues of courage and loyalty have lost their luster; his superior Santuro (Ernest Borgnine) is more interested in fishing and politics than solving crimes. As Marty says, the system is rigged in favor of wealthy guys with 'juice.' The slimy Leo Sellars can be involved in gang murders and porn vice while contributing to the deliquency of minors, but nobody dares touch him with wiretap evidence or even approach him on the subject of sex parties with underage girls. When Marty calls Phil a sellout, the detective knows it is the truth. Instead of going after the bad guys, Phil lets Marty see the porn film starring his daughter ... which he should know will goad Marty to violent action.

Hustle has a lot of good things going for it, but comes off as a bit slow and disjointed. A kinky romantic subplot has been shoehorned into the script, and it doesn't work all that well. Cop Reynolds is given the ultra-sophisticated Catherine Deneuve as a co-star, and she plays a top LA call girl. Perhaps the character is feasible but it comes off as commercial maneuvering; we never see Deneuve do anything more suggestive than making phone sex calls (without as much as a naughty word spoken), and she always looks as perfect as Grace Kelly. Both actors have star power but lack chemistry. Reynolds has some charm and Deneuve is more amorous than usual, but their scenes seem forced.

A number of phony action scenes are interspersed to keep up an illusion of excitement. In a development right out of a bad TV cop show, Phil Gaines interecedes in a hostage situation. One of Aldrich's familiar downbeat endings seems to come in from a Joseph Wambaugh cop story like The New Centurions. Hustle never decides whether it is a cop thriller, corruption mystery or unlikely romance.

Steve Shagan's script drags in an easy characterization for Phil; he's a nostalgic fellow who loves music and memories from the 20s and 30s, times he didn't experience for himself. The soundtrack takes every opportunity to use source music from the 50s and earlier, all romantic stuff by Charles Aznavour, big bands, etc. This background is meant to paint Phil Gaines as a man out of his time and a tragic figure, but it all seems imposed. Reynolds isn't a deep enough actor to sell it; there's nothing tragic in his eyes. As for all the retro whining, Shagan seems to be recycling unused material from his awful ode to self-pity Save the Tiger.

Hustle ends with an apologia for faking evidence and rigging the system, but the crimes don't seem any less corrupt just because Phil is doing them for a noble reason. He has no assurance that the unstable Marty will go along with the charade, and he does his partner a lousy disservice by dragging him into a major felony without even asking permission first. Belgrave earlier asked where the justice was, but it does nobody no good to say that justice can be found in vigilante conspiracies.

All of the actors are reasonably good in Hustle. Ernest Borgnine doesn't overact as he often does for Aldrich, and Eileen Brennan is terrific in a smallish role. Eddie Albert is also fine as a smooth villain, while Paul Winfield helps Reynolds make with the cop-talk. Ben Johnson also scores, although he's acting at the limits of his range. There's a nice comparison between Johnson's tearful viewing of his daughter in a porn film, to George C. Scott doing the same thing in Hardcore. The really meaningful movie that presented America as a place that sacrifices its sons to war and its daughters to sex killers is Ivan Passer's Cutter's Way, made six years later.


Paramount's DVD of Hustle is a good enhanced transfer of a film that was never all that pretty. The sound is clear for all of those sourced musical selections (So Rare, So Rare!) and colors are good. There are no extras. The cover tries to make the movie look like an action film, which it is not.


On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, Hustle rates:
Movie: Very Good
Video: Excellent
Sound: Excellent
Supplements: none
Packaging: Keep case
Reviewed: June 20, 2005





DVD Savant Text © Copyright 2007 Glenn Erickson

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