Alicia I love this movie so much

TinsHeadline Touches You

Beanbioca As Good As It Gets

ChanFamous I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Andy Howlett I liked this film, despite being a bit thrown by the jumpy, confused directing of (I presume) Michael Winner. Bronson is good, as are all the actors playing the major characters. But I think I got most pleasure from the mob-style Fedora hats that almost everyone seemed to be obliged to wear perched high on their heads. Surely by 1973, this style of headgear was way out of date? It looked vaguely ridiculous but at least it kept me amused. There was a 'Dirty Harry' vibe about the film and some of Roy Budd's music was quite close in style to that of Lalo Schifrin. Overall, an enjoyable film but maybe not because of the story.

LeonLouisRicci This is a bit more ambitious in Plot than one would expect from a One Dimensional Actor like Bronson and a One and One Half Dimensional Director like Michael Winner. But it is not better for it. What works here is the many Shootout and Chase Scenes that are well done and are as exciting as they are repetitive.The aforementioned "Deep" Story is never completely engaging or understandable for that matter. But Fans of this type of Street Stuff don't need that sort of intellectualizing. What they need is a "throw the book away" Law Enforcement type that is on the same level as the Scum He's up against. "takes one to catch one", or in this case "kill one". This He does and lots of them. The Body Count is as high as the Car Crash Count. This is a delightfully Dizzy Ditty from the early Seventies that is more Action oriented than some of its more Gritty contemporaries. It is more Slick and less Edgy, and that works for what it is. The Movie feels like it has a bigger budget than it needs but that's what is here so enjoy it. Overall it holds its own and has a dandy, dated look that is pleasing for those with an eye for Period. The Script is also a definitive Dialog on the eras Customs and Slang. Bloody and amusing, not seminal but enjoyable.

Robert J. Maxwell If you like "Charles Bronson movies" you'll like this Charles Bronson movie. We find him here, with his bandido mustache, in the rare role of a tough rogue cop who busts up the syndicate. The film opens with a shooting contest in New York between Bronson and a Puerto Rican kid who "wanted to be a comic book hero." One of the two winds up dead. Cut to the obligatory scene in which Bronson places his shield and his piece on the desk of his superiors.Yes, he's fired in New York, but he's welcomed by the LAPD. Working with a half-competent redneck partner, Lieutenant Bronson uncovers a plot by an old Mafia leader to wipe out the heads of all the other New York families because of a massive insult that took place forty-two years ago. The instrument of Martin Balsam's revenge will be the trained warriors who have returned deranged from their experiences in Vietnam. They, not Bronson, are the eponymous stone killers. Bronson is just an ordinary killer.Lots of familiar faces in the cast but they fail to lift it above the average "Charles Bronson movie." The location switches from coast to coast but that doesn't make any difference either. It's all derivative.When Bronson investigates a suspicious hippy girl -- this is 1972 -- we may recognize the location in which Paul Newman confronted Strother Martin in "Harper." The same gaggle of vegetarian goons are present, dressed like clowns, but this time the leader of the group goes into a rather interesting lecture on how "the blood of the cow and the animal fat clog up yer celebral arteries," and he delivers this encomium to carrots in what sounds like a Scandinavian accent.I don't know what the novel was like but it's been turned into a pulp movie full of shoot outs, cars chasing motorcycles on city streets, cars chasing cars in roiling clouds of dust across the desert floor, cars chasing cars in an underground parking garage -- and foot chases, in which man chases man in varying milieus. The environment I liked best was the mansion in the Mojave Desert, the house with the mastodon ribs as part of the decor.The musical score toggles between two modalities. There are the irritating metallic electronic guitars, which you can hear playing the main theme behind the opening credits. Then there is the suspense/action theme that is shamelessly ripped off from the still-quivering flank of "Bullet", including the ostinato that begins when Lieutenant Bullet snaps on his seat belt before the big chase.There's not much to be said about the acting. Martin Balsam handles the few lines of Italian well, considering that he's not a paisan. To make the story complete, somewhere along the line some fox should have lost her clothes and thrown herself at Bronson so that he could turn her away with a superior remark.

sol ***SPOILER*** Charles Bronson as transplanted to L.A NYPD detective Lou Torry gets the lowdown from burnt out and drug addicted ex hit-man Armitrage, Eddie Firestone,that a big hit is to take place back in New York City on April 10, 1973. Returning Armitrage to NYC to face drug charges he's killed in a drive-by shooting just as he stepped off the plane returning him in the presence of Det.Torry! Torry who didn't for once believe a thing that Armitrage told him now feels that there's something in his far out and off the wall story. And is now determined to do everything he can, even brake the law, to stop the impending bloodbath from happening!It's old time Mafia Don Al Vescari, Martin Balsam, who's behind this massive hit job in that he's been planning it for over 40 years. It was on April 10,1931 or really in real history September 10, 1931, the years must have clouded Vescari's memory, that over 40 of his fellow Sicilian Mafia cohorts were massacred by the Luciano/Lanskey mob. That was to clear the way for a major restructure, in accepting Jews Irish and non Sicilians, into the mob as full time blood members. Like back in 1931 when Luciano used non Italians, the Jewish members of Lanskey's Murder inc, who couldn't be traced to the killings Vescari plans to use faceless and traceless ex-Vietnam vets, many with both mental and drug problems, to do his dirty work for him!The movie slowly builds up to its blood soaked conclusion as Let. Torry despite all the evidence,like in the newspapers books and even movies and TV specials, available to him in the history of the Mafia doesn't get it, the significance of the April 10 date in Mafia history, until the film is almost over. By then it's already too late with all the mob non Sicilian chieftains are by then assembled at a midtown Manhattan hotel where their killers, the ex Vietnam GI's, lead by super patriot Lawrence, Stuart Margolis, are waiting to ambush them.***SPOILERS** Typicel Bronson action flick with Bronson as Det. Torry saving the day but not the mob higher up whom Lawrence & co. end up doing in before they themselves are iced by Torry and members of the NYPD as well as Government SWAT teams and a company of NY National Guard. Det. Torry still couldn't really get the job done by him not being able to stop the massacre but with all those killed being criminals anyway no one watching the movie seemed to really care. In the end it was non other then the man who engineered this whole sale slaughter Don Vescari, in him feeling guilty about what he did, who went to confession to have his soul cleansed of the some dozen or so murders that he was responsible for.