Review

by anurag v

A dark comedy

Set in the 1930s, here Clint Eastwood is Lieutenant Speer, normally very laid back, to the point where he can watch others beating each other up with no involvement, until ... they cause his coffee or drink to spill. Then he becomes a fighting machine.Burt Reynolds is his friend and investigator Mike Murphy, who is constantly the butt of "short" jokes next to Eastwood.Other notables include Jane Alexander, Madeline Kahn, and Rip Torn. Plus, the singer Irene Cara of "Flashdance" fame plays a singer Ginny Lee. As a movie, overall, it isn't very good. The story is confusing, almost impossible to figure out who is doing what and for what reason. There are lots of fights and lots of shooting, but hardly anyone gets hit with bullets. But as a dark comedy it works pretty well, for the actors in it.