New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

When it comes to a human embodiment of coolness, there's only ever been one name in movies: Steve McQueen. I mean, just say that name out loud. The man's name even sounded cool. Of course, it helps that we associate Steve McQueen with being a suave, smart, debonair tough guy, someone as at ease as a thief in The Thomas Crown Affair as he would be while escaping the Nazis in The Great Escape. However, for most people, the movie that made Steve McQueen more than a movie star, but an icon of American hipness, was Bullitt, a low-key crime drama remembered for its thrilling, you-are-there car chase midway through. The car he drove, the San Francisco roads he bounced over, the lack of stress in his face: this virtuoso scene made McQueen the man.

I could go on for a long time about how awesome this scene is. Going into Bullitt, I knew only so much: that McQueen played the original, perhaps, rogue cop, that the movie was set in San Francisco, and that there was a famous car chase. If anything, the fact that said chase still works today, 41 years after its initial release, is not only a testament to the gritty filmmaking espoused by director Peter Yates, but a condemnation of the fact that car chases are now seen by most filmmakers as an excuse for hundreds of jump-cuts and a dearth of coherency. The scene is, in many ways, the real climax of Bullitt, as the adrenaline that emanates from the movie seeps into your bones; even walking around my house was making me feel hopped up.

You can tell that I'm about to drop the other shoe, right? Yes, Bullitt has an amazing action scene. Yes, Steve McQueen is suave here. But that's about all there is. There's the iconic star, the iconic car, and not much else. The problem with Bullitt is that...it's too cool. Who'd have thought that an overabundance of coolness would be such a problem? During the time it was made and released, I imagine that Bullitt was not only groundbreaking for its action, but for its leading man. As Lieutenant Frank Bullitt (kudos, by the way, to the filmmakers for not making this name as inherently ridiculous as it ought to be), McQueen is almost uncaring as opposed to simply a bit too hip for the room. He walks around the movie as if he owns it, but would sell it if only someone would take it off his hands.

The whole movie treats things as if it's too cool to care. Sure, Bullitt does his job, as a San Francisco cop, but when push comes to shove, he'll fight back. To a point, he'll fight back. If you go into this movie considering that Bullitt is meant to be a cop who does things his own way, you might be surprised to notice that he never seems to raise his voice about anything, take severe action against anyone who's fighting against him; in short, he does none of the things that we have come to expect from the stereotypical lone wolf cop. Instead, Bullitt boils over silently, annoyed at the slimeball politico played by Robert Vaughn (who does the slimeball role well here and in countless other projects), not willing to get too rankled when things don't go his way. He's not happy, but...well, he's too cool to get angry.

Continued:       1       2