Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Directed by Peter Hyams, Busting apparently inspired the television show Starsky & Hutch. It was released at a similar time as Freebie and the Bean which was commercially more successful but Busting is more tighter, coherent and cynical picture that still retains elements of its comedy.Keneely (Elliott Gould) tall, laconic and chews gum all the time and Farrel (Robert Blake) shorter and tougher are two LA vice cops who spend most of their time arresting hookers and people in gay bars rather than than the big crime lords who they feel are being protected by their superior officers and cynical lawyers.They decide to go all out to catch the local crime lord Rizzo (Allen Garfield) which annoys their superiors who prefer they go after the small fry.The film has a comedic and anarchic tone but beneath the cynicism it also has a heart of two cops trying to do the right thing and not happy with just fitting up hookers and their clients.There are thrills as well with well staged shootout sequences in a market and later in a hospital. The film is a softer and sarcastic edged version of The French Connection featuring elements of a buddy cop duo and a message that crime does pay.

Gee… doesn't the 70s have some cracking crime thrillers… some of these even fall in the cracks, which this one undeservedly does and in which case I would put it down as one of the best the decade had to offer. Writer / director Peter Hyams' debut feature "Busting" is an excellently pitched comedy thriller with outstanding performances by Elliott Gould and Robert Blake as two Los Angeles vice squad officers Michael Keneely and Patrick Farrel who rage a war against a well-respected crime kingpin Carl Rizzo (Allen Garfield), but also find themselves fighting corruption inside the force for their constant harassing of Rizzo. There they decide if it means doing things outside the book, well they'll do it to get their man.The surefooted plot might seem dated and rather routine (frustrated cops battling criminals and the law, in which they feel like they are fighting a lost cause), but the innovative script is constantly witty / stinging in its observations (that especially goes for its downbeat, but ironic conclusion) and the chemistry between Gould and Blake simply ignites. The narrative seems to be strung together by sporadic plot threads, but there's a certain awkwardness to its cynical approach that just makes it so odd. The interchanges between the two cops and also with Garfield are bitingly dry, but enjoyably so. While there's a playful tongue-in-cheek style, it can be exhaustingly aggressive (you know the brutality featuring red paint) and edgy. Hyams skilfully stages the lean action with gritty, but frenetic authenticity as the bombastic score kicks in. Watch how the camera-work always instinctively moves around, like it has a mind of its own by following the action with numerous tracking shots. Just look at the relentlessly thrilling market store shootout / chase. Earl Rath does a hypnotic job behind the camera. Hyams keeps it snappy and makes great use of the grungy urban setting and seedy strips that really do bring the film to life. The cast are fantastic in their roles. Garfield reeks of confidence and the support features the likes of William Sylvester, Logan Ramsey, Michael Learner, Antonio Fargas, Corbelia Sharpe and the dominating Sid Haig as Rizzo's bouncer."Gotta stay alive man. Gotta stay alive."

I was watching a re-run of this one the other day and although I remembered I had seen it before, couldn't help noticing how fresh it still is. This one will surely ruin some fantasies as to what police work really entails, and while over thirty years old, it's quite hard-hitting action-wise,-the one shot down the corridor and staircase-chase scene into the market be testimony, but also extremely dark and complex for this genre in character-development and attention to detail - the crummy apartment scene (loved the ugly cap and crying neighbor's baby - touch), the "how do you spell Rizzo?" -writing on the toilet wall scene, the "Shezam"-scene...and so on. Also the movie score of a time where each movie had a personalized theme other than who knows who's latest MTV hit. Along with "The French Connection", "Cruising" or "To live and die in L.A", this is one of the best character-study of cops ever made by American cinema. And somehow they made it without the explosions and big budget demolition or the inter-racial partner buddy-buddy, always joking, driving Porsche, kissing the supermodel routine, but also without losing humor- the slow-dance in the fag-joint -for instance. Instead they used a little thing called talent and inspiration. Elliott Gould is in top form in this one as ever and really works well with Robert Blake.While extremely entertaining action-wise, it also raises some fair questions, like - why do they do it? or -what to do when you know you can't change anything? it doesn't preach and remains extremely human until the end.

This was Peter Hyams directorial debut and he does show some of the elements that would later make him a very good filmmaker. Elliott Gould and Robert Blake play two vice cops who are tired of they're job until they try and bust a hooker (Cornelia Sharpe) and are told that she has connections with a local mob boss (Allen Garfield) and because of that she won't be prosecuted. So then they decide to check him and his operations out. What I think hurts the film is that its so predictable and its just another cop film from the seventies. Nothing that special. Gould and Blake use the usual cop banter when they talk and then there is the obligatory scene with Gould in his rundown cheap apartment. Every cop film has this scene. Of course the Sgt in charge of them keeps telling them both he's heard complaints about them and you have to have at least one car chase. There is one impressive scene and its where they chase three bad guys out of a building and into a supermarket. Its done in one continuous shot and its accompanied by an effective piece of music. Its a very well done scene and very well choreographed. The same music is heard during the ambulance chase scene. Football player Carl Eller has a scene where he beats up Gould and how about Blake calling Garfield "Spanky"! Hyams would later direct better films than this and while this film does have some decent moments (Like Gould on the stand!) its still not up to par with a lot of the cop films of the seventies.