Sharky's Machine Film Reviews

Director: Burt Reynolds
Year: 1981
Rating: 7.5

I would have rated this higher except for a sluggish romantic lull in the middle that tested my patience and felt awkward but otherwise this is what a cop film should be back when they made them tough, gritty and real. A great ensemble of cops, a slick villain, a deadly killer and of course the beautiful woman. It is obsession, corruption, sex, desire, jabs of extreme violence and echoes of the classic film Laura. It is Burt Reynolds at his best - my favorite Reynold's film - with his charming boyish smile at the ready, a twinkle in his eye, an edge of perversion that leaks out from his gut and charisma dripping down. But he never falls back on any of his film quirks - plays it straight and true to his character. He directs this - one of the few films he did but perhaps he should have done more because he seems to capture the essence of who he is better than most. He brings along a wonderful cast to surround himself with that made me smile as the opening credits rolled by. Vittorio Gassman as the polite, arrogant villain with the narrow merciless eyes, then Brian Keith, Bernie Casey, Charles Durning, Richard Libertini, John Fiedler as the cops working with Sharkey, Earl Holliman as the Mayor, Rachel Ward as the object of desire and best of all Henry Silva as what else but an edgy drug infused cold cold killer.

Sharkey is undercover pulling off a drug deal when a fellow cop blows it and there is a chase through the streets on to a bus that is kinetic and ends up with a civilian being killed. He transfers to Vice - the end of the line for burnt out cops - where the typical day is arresting street prostitutes that offer you paradise for 20 minutes. The pizza left on the floor is older than most of the cops. After he arrests one of the working girls, he flips through her notebook and notices seven phone numbers in code. He breaks it and asks for all of them to be bugged. One number is declined by someone up the line.

So, he, Casey and Brian Keith decide to do it on their own over the objections of their commander Durning who just wants to get his two years in till retirement. Sharkey gets his friend Libertini to bug the place and they set up an observation room across from her building. She is Rachel Ward who is playing wet nurse to the Mayor, but Sharkey becomes obsessed with her - watching her night and day - exercise, sleep, eat, take showers - she is kind enough to often leave her curtains wide open - photographing everything though there can't really be a point to that - the others pitch in - I am surprised they didn't have a box of Kleenex nearby. It is creepy after a while - it feels more like Peeping Tom than a police operation. She plays My Funny Valentine sung by Chet Baker as he lies in bed and listens.

Then the Mayor comes by, then Victor (Gassman) who clearly owns her body and soul but she wants out. Then Silva pays her a visit. With a sawed-off shotgun and blows her face away through the door. Rather than turning it over to homicide they decide to go after the killer themselves. It has become personal. Some hard to watch violent scenes ahead but it is tense and wonderfully paced. The final shootout will make you wince. Reynolds is a generous director giving all his actors some good moments and gives them all enough of a personality to make you care when the killer comes after them. Ward as the high-class prostitute who wants to believe desperately that she is a dancer is seductive and warm like a freshly baked cherry pie. If I watched her for 24 hours a day, I might fall in love too. Reynolds called this Dirty Harry Goes to Atlanta.