Bullitt

Viewed: DVD

I borrowed this movie from my dad when we were visiting over the Christmas holidays. He asked me if I knew anything about it, and I said, “It’s Steve McQueen driving a car.” I had heard of the movie before, as a legend, but all I knew was that it was especially famous for car chases.

The cover of the DVD package shows four cars in an apparent chase. The top blurb on the back of the package says, “NOW-CLASSIC CAR CHASE, ONE OF THE SCREEN’S ALL-TIME BEST.” Well, turns out there’s only one car chase, and it’s only about 10 minutes long, out of 114 minutes total movie time.

Although the car chase is good — up and down the hills, and through the traffic of San Francisco — and I have to give it some credit for being a 1968 flick, it’s not on the same level as the car chases from The Road Warrior or To Live and Die in L.A. (It wouldn’t be fair to compare it to The Matrix Reloaded car chase, as Bullitt is all live action, not a lot of CG.)

Steve McQueen plays detective Frank Bullitt, who, with a team of fellow cops, has the job of protecting a government witness. Sadly, I think modern TV and movies have ruined me for watching this kind of old cop/investigation story. The action is lackluster by today’s grand achievements, and the investigative work is fairly boring compared to modern TV stories like Law and Order and CSI.

So, all in all, it’s not impressive when watched in light of more recent movies. The writing, acting, and cinematography is good (better than decent, possibly better than good) compared to modern fare. But its main genre — action, cop, investigative — is outshone by some of today’s TV shows.

Plus, there’s one little thing that bugged me with this movie. One of the cop partners with Frank Bullitt looks an awful lot like the witness they’re protecting. There was a couple of scenes where it took me several moments to realize I was looking at a different character. And for a mystery/investigative story, with potential for action to break out, those few moments messed up the flow.

Bullgrit