Busting (1974)

Elliot Gould and Robert Blake play a couple of vice cops trying to bring down a guy with the veneer of a respected businessman, and all the connections that go with it. Which means they maybe got break some rules, but that's OK, right? They both tend to be glib, talking fast and casual, playing dumb as they discuss questioning a dentist about his affairs in front of his wife and kids, or trashing a lady's apartment looking for a book, that kind of thing.

Since I tend to associate Gould with comedy, I expected this to be sort of a parody or satire of the French Connection or Dirty Harry. But no, it seems to be a movie like those, except the protagonists are arresting sex workers. Which doesn't really work to gain my sympathy when they start breaking into people's apartments without warrants or whatnot. Dirty Harry was after a guy who was killing people, then kidnapped and held a lady for ransom (who he had already killed.) I didn't particularly care so much if "Scorpio" had a bad time when Dirty Harry catches up. But when Gould and Blake are acting as the point men for the cops to bust up a gay bar for putting on some sort of "show" after closing time, yeah, I'm not going to be on their side.

The plot eventually turns to trying to link the "respected" businessman to drugs, and there's some shootouts in an all-night marketplace, a car chase at the end with the types of ambulance the Ghostbusters used. That works a little better, as there's evidence the drugs, among other uses, are a way to keep the sex workers in line by getting them addicted. The all-night market shootout is slower-paced, characters creeping between aisles with the camera following them before it jumps to a different character. The car chase definitely feels like it's trying to be French Connection briefly, with the camera views from the grille of the cars as they barrel down the road, swerving and whatnot. I'm not sure it's long enough, or else the cars they're using aren't fast enough, to be very exciting.

One thing the movie does well, it keeps the villain, Mr. Rizzo (Allen Garfield), out of sight for the first half. He's only mentioned or obliquely referred to. Gould and Blake muse about the show one lady puts on in Rizzo's cabaret, or how much they'd like to bust it. Their boss will mention Rizzo's lawyer made bail for a guy they busted running a "massage parlor." The guy running the parlor will tell them they aren't supposed to be there, without specifically mentioning Rizzo's name, of course.

And when we do finally meet him, watching some the training of some boxer he sponsors, he's an assuming guy. Nothing impressive about him visually beyond how indifferent he is to Gould and Blake's verbal jabs and threats. He doesn't laugh in their faces, but you can tell he's laughing on the inside. Even they acknowledge they didn't get anywhere with him.

It does feel like the scene where his goons get the drop on Gould and Blake and beat their asses should have come after they started following him everywhere, rather than before. They sat behind him and his family in church, then hung out in the parking lot of the restaurant where they went to eat after. They eventually set his car on fire and danced around it singing "Happy Birthday," which feels like the kind of thing that would prompt a severe beating. That does make Rizzo call the commissioner and have them suspended, but that makes it weird how Rizzo escalates and de-escalates his response. They bust a sex worker of his, he gets her a good lawyer, encourage the police chief to tell them to drop the case. They follow him to a boxing match, have them beat up. They light his car on fire, have them suspended. Does he just flip a coin? "Heads, we use influence. Tails, we use violence."