Genre Guesstimation – Cops and Robbers (1973)

The idea behind this feature (Genre Guesstimation) is for me to watch a bunch of new movies (or ones that I haven’t seen many times) from the chosen monthly GG genre in order to expand my knowledge of movies within that particular genre.

This month’s genre has been chosen by Paul of Silver Screen Classics and we will be reviewing our favorite New York Films of the 70’s.

Please get me your submissions by the 25th of Jun by sending them to NYC70spaul@movierob.net

Try to think out of the box! Great choice Paul!

Let’s see if I felt that this movie would be worthy of being in the company of my others favorite movies in the genre of New York Films of the 70’s….

“I tell ya Joe. This is our guy!” – Tom

“We’re goin to the South Seas kiddo!” – Joe

Number of Times Seen – 1 (5 Jun 2020)

Brief Synopsis – Two veteran patrolmen plan a simple heist but whatever can go wrong, does.

My Take on it – This is a film that I came across by accident while seeking out films to watch for this month’s genre.
I had never heard of this beforehand, but the premise and the plot seemed entertaining enough to give them a try.

It’s too bad that this story doesn’t work even better than it does because it is presented in far too a simple manner.

There is no question about the fact that this is a film glowing with social criticism about the thankless kind of work cops face day in and day out on the street.

The movie isn’t a direct comedy, yet it has so many comic tones built in to things that the viewer will constantly chuckle at the situations that these characters find themselves in and continue to wonder what will happen next as things are always going in directions that we probably won’t expect.

Despite their real lack of development, the characters are interesting to watch.

This also makes it easier to root for them despite the fact that they are diving into some very savory actions.

This helps the story become more entertaining to watch unfold along the way.

It’s quite unfortunate that they didn’t invest more time and energy to the plot and the characters because had they done so, it would have made thing seven more gripping to follow.

Bottom Line – Really fun film that unfortunately doesn’t work better than it does. The film is definitely a social criticism of the thankless kind of work that policeman do on a day to day basis on the street. This isn’t an outright comedy, but so much happens here that makes one chuckle and wonder what will happen next as things constantly don’t seem to go the way that they expect them to. The characters are intriguing to watch and it’s easy to root for them despite the illegal and immoral ramifications of it all which helps make things more entertaining to watch unfold. It’s too bad that they didn’t invest more into the plot and the characters in order to make them even more gripping to watch it all unravel.

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – In a long shot of traffic there is a truck emblazoned with the Bohack logo. Bohack was a supermarket in the 70s and it featured prominently in many other Donald Westlake novels involving John Dortmunder whose girlfriend, May, worked there. (From IMDB)

Genre Grandeur Worthy? – Not really. Fun film, but not very deep in its premise of in its characters.

Rating – Globe Worthy (7/10)