Bustin' Vice Cops

BUSTING (1974)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Amazing is the key word when you ruminate on how many terrific cop films appeared in the 1970's. Consider highly gritty fare like "The French Connection," "Serpico," "The Laughing Policemen," "Dirty Harry" and many more. "Busting" is slower, more methodical than most and not always a total success - its rhythms are too jagged - but it does have a realistic sense of time and place and shows the fatigue of being a cop.

In this case, the fatigue is in working for the vice squad. Two vice cops, Keneely and Farrel (Elliott Gould, Robert Blake), spend their days infiltrating porno shops, bathrooms, bars and other sordid locations where drug dealers and prostitutes can be found. The movie begins with the least likely location of prostitution: a dentist's office. The drugs take the duo to a homosexual bar (a controversial scene that raised the ire of homophobic groups). Sometimes there is a shootout at an outside supermarket - other times, Keneely and Farrel sit around impatiently waiting for the next bust. But then something arises that could change their careers. These common felons they are pursuing are in fact working for a mobster named Rizzo (Allen Garfield). Keneely and Farrel find a black book belonging to Rizzo that contains the names of numerous contacts, as well as people in the District Attorney's office and the police department (ah, the days when corruption seemed so shocking). The duo feel that bringing down Rizzo is all they need to elevate themselves. The best that can be said for them is they have the stamina that Serpico had.

"Busting" is unusual in its sense of pervading gloom. You get the sense that the ambitious Keneely and Farrel are unaware that capturing someone as seedy and powerful as Rizzo is a no-win situation - we know it, they don't. Though we are not afforded much of a look into their lives, we still sense the tiredness of their job - an interminable void of a job if there ever was one. This is where director Peter Hyams is at his best - capturing an atmosphere of emotional drainedness. It surrounds Keneely and Farrel who seem like good cops. But will anyone give them half of a chance to do real police work rather than pursue the so-called dregs of society? Isn't it time to quit when all you can do is wait for a pervert to show up at some unkempt bathroom?