Busting (1974)

Directed by

Peter Hyams

Genre

drama film, buddy film, comedy drama, crime film, police film, action comedy film

Country

United States

Runtime

1h 32m

Rated

R

Rating

6.2 of 10 from 56 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

Two honest LAPD detectives try to take down a crime boss but face corruption in their own department. They resort to harassing the villain and his family until they find evidence of drug trafficking at a hospital.

frustratinggrittytensedarkly comicurbancynicalpacy

What happens

Busting is a 1974 American buddy cop film, directed by Peter Hyams in his theatrical directorial debut, starring Elliott Gould and Robert Blake as police detectives of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). The film was the main inspiration for the cop series Starsky & Hutch, which premiered in 1975 and, like this film, also featured Antonio Fargas. In the film, the honest efforts of the two detectives against organized crime are undermined by police corruption and by the influence of a local crime boss over the police department. They are sent to police gay bars instead. The detectives resort to harassing the crime boss and his family, until uncovering evidence of drug trafficking in a hospital which counted the crime boss as a patient. The crime boss states to them that he cannot be convicted on circumstantial evidence, and dares them to shoot him. Busting was the last film Blake starred in before his fame reached greater heights with the cop drama series Baretta. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

More like this

• Chinatown (1974)
• Newman's Law (1974)
• McQ (1974)
• Black Eye (1974)
• Freebie and the Bean (1974)
• The Super Cops (1974)
• The Conversation (1974)
• Heat (1995)