Made back in the early 1970s when cop movies were gritty and realistic. Dirty streets, dirtier cops and drugs. Made the world go round. Films like Serpico, The French Connection, The Seven-Ups, Busting and The Choirboys were in the theaters. The Blaxploitation films were the add on to this streak of corrupt realism. Entire precincts were on the take. New York City was like a cesspool in some areas. Certainly, where this film takes place. Bed-Stuy. I moved to Brooklyn in 1978 and still have my apartment there. One thing you learned early on. Don't end up in Bed-Stuy by accident or purpose. It has been cleaned up some since then but back in the 70's it looked like a war zone as my taxi drove through or from the subway above. They hand this over to Gordon Parks, director of Shaft and Shaft's Big Score. He knew the territory as a photo-journalist and through experience.


This is based on the book The True Story of the Cops Called Batman and Robin by LH.H. Whittemore. It begins with a video of a real-life press conference in which the Police Commissioner extols the virtues of cops Greenberg and Hantz with the real cops standing behind him - Greenberg in a Batman T-shirt. The film then proceeds to show all the events that led up to that. Very much against the wishes of the Commissioner. Greenberg (Ron Leibman) and Hantz (David Selby) meet in the Academy and immediately recognize each other as kindred spirits - independent, take no shit cops. As traffic cops they go after drug dealers off-duty which gets them no praise - stay in your own lane they are told repeatedly. They end up pissing off so many in the top echelons that they get assigned to the 21st Precinct, Bed-Stuy (where the movie was actually filmed). The end of the line where cops with no future go to retire.


They stray out of their lane again and go after drug dealers - again pissing off a precinct that prefers keeping its head down. They get betrayed by District Attorneys, other cops and are on their own. Only the Captain (Dan Frasier, who always seems to be a Captain as in Kojak) begins to work with them. Just keep doing what you are doing - which was arresting a record number of drug dealers. IA investigates them because they can't believe they are not crooked and try to set them up. I recall from way back reading about these two guys. Heroes in a NYC where crime was so dug in. What came after the book and film was not as pretty for these two cops, Greenberg was convicted twice for mail fraud and sent to jail each time and Hantz was arrested in the Bahamas for possessing marijuana and demoted back home. He resigned in 1975. Gritty and tough due to the broken-down surroundings but with a light touch because of the jovial back and forth between Leibman and Selby. Leibman's manic grin is contagious.

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