Rating: 
Summary: Bullitt Hits The Mark
Review: 1968's Bullitt is best known for its classic car chase scene that is still considered by many to the best of all time. The movie is worth watching for that scene alone as Steve McQueen's fastback Mustang chases down a Dodge Charger for a tense ten minutes through the streets of San Francisco. Even without that memorable scene, Bullitt is a classic 60's film. Mr. McQueen's performance as steely police detective Frank Bullitt is one of his best and the forerunner of the anti-heroes that would dominate films of the 70's. The plot revolves around a seemingly routine job for Bullitt and his men to protect a mob informant (Pat Renella) who is set to testify before a Senate subcommittee. When two hitmen break into the safe house and fatally wound the informant and injury another detective, Bullitt begins to have questions and takes up investigating the case on his own with the help of fellow detective Delgetti (Don Gordon). Fighting them at every turn is ruthless and ambitious senator Chalmers played with unctuous smarm by Robert Vaughan. Jacqueline Bissett co-stars in one of her first roles as Bullitt's girlfriend and Robert Duvall has a bit part as a cabbie. Director Peter Yates crafts a gritty look to the film and editor Frank Keller won the Academy Award for his superb work.
Rating: 
Summary: Steve McQueen scorches the streets of San Francisco
Review: Arguably the best crime film of 1968, and certainly one of the most influential films of the genre...."Bullitt" established new directions in the mood and style of crime thrillers, and firmly established McQueen as one of the key anti-hero stars of the 60's. Based on the gritty novel "Mute Witness" by Robert L. Pike, this was the first, and only, time McQueen portrayed a police officer (albeit a maverick one) in his movie career. In 1968 Steve was then riding high on the success of his previous crime film, "The Thomas Crown Affair", and "Bullitt" just propelled his star even higher into the heavens !The plot is tight, economical and well crafted....taciturn, moody Detective Frank Bullitt (McQueen) is charged with the protection of a key witness vital to an upcoming trial involving Mafia connections. Whilst hidden away in a supposed secure location, the witness and his police guard are brutally gunned down by unknown assailants. The heat is turned up on Bullitt by his tough Captain (Simon Oakland) and the manipulative, opportunistic politician Walter Chalmers (Robert Vaughn) to come up with the right answers fast ! Between the draining investigation, Bullitt struggles to maintain his relationship with his cultured, sensitive girlfriend, Cathy (Jacqueline Bisset) Primarily coming from a TV series background, Englishman Peter Yates (directing his fourth movie) did a commendable job as director on "Bullitt"...producing a complex, intense crime thriller with a unique style that would ultimately influence many other films. Yates would later to go onto direct Robert Mitchum in the excellent "sleeper" crime film "The Friends of Eddie Coyle" ! And of course "Bullitt" is reknowned for it's now legendary car chase between Frank Bullitt's 390 GT Mustang and the two hitmen in their black, Dodge Charger 440 Magnum barrelling through the city streets and highways of San Francisco....just don't pay too much attention to how many times they pass that slow-moving, green VW Beetle !! The DVD transfer is excellent in both sound and picture quality, and the Limited Edition Set with the extra goodies (Single sheet poster, shooting draft, lobby cards etc.) is a real bonus for keen film fans !! One of my favourite cop thrillers....McQueen sizzles on screen !!
Rating:
Summary: You don't have to bite the BULLIT to see this picture.
Review: This is definately one of Steve Mcqueen's best films. McQueen play a dective assigned to protect a star witness who will be testifying about the criminal organiztion he once belonged to. So as not to spoil anything I will suffice it to say that the plot becomes action packed very quickly and includes what is probably best car chase that will ever be put on film, and made the 60's Mustang an icon in muscle car history. Long story short Steve Mcqueen is an amazing actor, and this is an amazing film
Rating: 
Summary: The Greatest Car Chase in Motion Picture History
Review: There are really only two reasons to see this movie: Steve McQueen as Frank Bullitt, and the famous car chase. Other than that, it's pretty thin stuff.
Despite the conceit, much-ballyhooed in the 1968 "Steve McQueen's Commitment to Reality" short feature, included on the DVD, that Bullitt is a "real world" police procedural, the plot has holes in it you could drive a 1968 Mustang GT through. For instance, one of the story's major "surprises" depends on San Francisco PD Homicide NOT instantly fingerprinting and IDing the body in a major gangland hit.
It's ludicrous when Bullitt tells a police evidence technician to fingerprint stuff he and his partner have just spent minutes pawing over - without wearing gloves, even. Oy gevalt!
Toward the end of the movie, we have those long, lingering images of Bullitt's revolver in its holster, brought home by the detective right after using it to kill a man. False. In a major police department, any gun used in an officer-involved shooting is instantly impounded as evidence, until the subsequent investigation has proven him innocent of wrongdoing, and the completion of any resultant legal proceedings, as well.
So, the first reason to see this movie: Steve McQueen does an excellent job of portraying Frank Bullitt as a police detective so emotionally buttoned-down he's almost incapable of expressing real emotion: hate, love, rage, fear, despair, only emerge through those amazingly gray laser beam eyes. This guy is so tense he can barely sleep at night. He's an avatar of that most American of hard-boiled fictional detectives, from Dashiell Hammett's Continental Op onward: the job holder. To Bullitt, all that matters is getting the job done. Everything else, personal physical jeopardy, conflict with his lover, the grief he's buying himself with Robert Vaughn's sleazy politician, takes a backseat to solving the crime.
Many folks can't figure out what's happening in the movie's final image, Frank Bullitt staring at his own reflection in a mirror. I would hazard a guess it just might be Bullitt contemplating (perhaps "dreading" would be a better word) exactly how the beautiful girlfriend sleeping in the other room, who's already been giving him grief about the violence of the world he inhabits, is going to react when he tells her how he spent HIS day.
The other reason to see Bullitt is, of course, the car chase. There's a reason this scene is famous, folks: it's just damn good. At 1:05:17 according to my DVD player, Frank Bullitt, while getting into his dark racing green Ford Mustang 390 GT, notices he's being stalked by a black 1968 Dodge Charger 440 Magnum R/T, inside which are two hitmen he's been trying to catch for most of the movie. He pulls out, the Charger follows. For the next three minutes, they play cat and mouse with each other, driving slowly through winding, sloping San Francisco streets. Suddenly the roles reverse, Bullitt has finessed himself BEHIND the Charger. The hunters become the hunted. From the moment Bill Hickman fastens his seatbelt at 1:08:28 and the Charger peels out, until the scene ends seven minutes later at 1:15:31 we're treated to the greatest car versus car chase in motion picture history. Only the chase scene in The French Connection eclipses Bullitt - but that's a car chasing an elevated train. For car versus car, nothing can touch Bullitt.
Credit for the success of this scene, while obviously we must recognize the director/cinematographer/editor, must go mostly to Bill Hickman and Steve McQueen. Hickman, who also stunt drove The French Connection, has been called "a madman who refused to back down from a challenge." He's also been called "the greatest stunt driver in motion picture history." McQueen, himself an accomplished auto and motorcycle racer, insisted on doing his own driving in this scene. Where many movies have attempted to generate an impression of speed in chase scenes by shooting cars moving at sane velocities, then speeding up the film, everything in the Bullitt car chase is shown in real time, as Hickman and McQueen pilot their Mustang and Charger respectively through twisting San Francisco streets and out into the surrounding roads (San Francisco: a city absolutely infested with slow moving green VW Beetles) at speeds of up to 115 miles an hour. There's none of the fishtailing around corners we see in so many car chases, because directors think it looks "dramatic," like a car almost out of control. Instead Hickman and McQueen slide smoothly through corners, their cars look they're being driven by pros - because they are.
After all the lame car chases we've all suffered through over the years, it's great to see it done right. There's never been another car chase to equal Bullitt, because to execute that scene required two absolutely insane, highly skilled stunt drivers: Bill Hickman and Steve McQueen. And their like doesn't come around that often.
Rating:
Summary: The sweater
Review: In the last scene, Bullitt arives home, wearing his famous royal blue turtle-neck sweater.
He goes into the bathroom and looking back at him is his reflection wearing a dark maroon turtle-neck sweater!
and this movie won an award for editing!!
The chase scene in San Francisco is still a classic!!!
Rating: 
Summary: Let's go for a walk.
Review: This film won an Oscar for Best Editing! Wow, it must have been a really bad year for editing. This movie wastes so much time it's hard to stay awake at times. There are too many shots that have nothing to do with the movie or develop the plot in any way. There are extended shots of Bullitt ordering at a restaurant, Bullitt buying TV dinners at a grocery store, Bullitt getting breakfast at the hospital, Bullitt talking to his girlfriend about pipe, ahhhh! There are also too many shots of people doing nothing but walking, walking down the hallway, walking down the street, walking through the door, walking to church, walking up the stairs walking walking walking! It is amazing. It takes an hour for the movie to do what should take only 15 minutes.
Probably the cheesiest scene in the whole movie is when Bullitt's girlfriend gets upset after she follows the police into a hotel room and finds him in there with a dead body. (Don't ask me why she does, or why the police just let people on the street follow them into a crime scene.) Well anyway she gets all upset and says "I thought I knew you, but I am not so sure anymore. Do you let anything reach you? I mean really reach you? Or are you so used to it by now that nothing really touches you." And goes on and on about how callous he is and doesn't want to be reminded of the world he lives in.
Please, give me a break; he is a police officer for heaven sake. They see dead people all the time, and what did she expect, him to break down and cry every time he sees a dead body?
It was a pathetic attempt at sentimentality.
The only redeeming qualities of this movie are Steve McQueen's cool acting, the car chase scene and seeing some nice sports cars from the 1960's.
But, the plot is so thin if all of the walking, eating and conversations about pipe were left out this movie could have been half as long. This movie reminded me of a bad TV show.
I considered giving it two stars just for Steve, the chase scene the nice cars and the film does at times has a nice stylized feel to it. But two stars is just slightly below average and this film is way below average, Perhaps a 1.5.
Rating: 
Summary: Soporific
Review: Steve McQueen is a cop called Frank Bullitt who is assigned to guard Johnny Ross, a key witness against the mob, but the baddies get to him and he's quickly out of the picture. So off goes Bullitt to figure out how they got to him. Robert Vaughn as crooked politician is not being very helpful wandering round the place demanding that Bullitt's superiors crucify him...
By 1970, the genre of film noir was more or less over. Some films of the early 70s - `Dirty Harry;' `Chinatown' - made interesting attempts at re-invention while Altman's `Long Goodbye' was an elegy for a genre that had largely lost its relevance. `Bullitt' from 1968 is the genre visibly on its last legs. McQueen, the Kevin Costner of the 1960s, may have seemed cool for his day but, my word, he's no Bogart and Yates is no Hawks or Dmytryk. It's often categorized as a classic but it's not. Yates' direction seems to be informed by the idea that tension is best sustained by letting things move forward very very slowly, McQueen's performance by the idea that to appear really cool and really tough the trick is to be laconic almost to the point of catatonia. Both these ideas perhaps have had relatively effective implementations in other movies. Here their outcome is just tedium. It's a thoroughly boring movie with utterly wooden performances across the board and already far too long at a little under two hours for its slender plot to bear. The climax, a pursuit scene at an airport is intended to be exciting, but is just lame in an intensely, `Oh for heaven's sake, get on with it' kind of way. I was glad when it ended.
Rating:
Summary: Film Noir in Color
Review: "Bullitt" is considered by many to be Steve McQueen's best performance. That by itself says a lot about the movie. However, "Bullitt" is not a movie that everyone will enjoy. My first impression in seeing it as a teenager was that this movie was too complicated to really enjoy. Over the years, I given it an occassional look and have begun to appreciate it a lot more. It fits into that class of movies popular in the 1940's and 50's called Film Noir in which we see the darker and seedier sides of life. The heroes are often not too far removed from the bad guys and there doesn't ever seem to be a happy ending. It's hard to come away from one of those movies feeling good about anything. Just because you can call a movie part of the "Film Noir" genre doesn't automatically make it a good movie. However, it also doesn't automatically make it a bad movie either.
There is much to appreciate in "Bullitt". The acting is terrific and I'm not just talking about McQueen. The character played by Robert Vaughn is disgusting but it isn't until later that it hits you that it's Vaughn's performance that creates the character's impact on you. Of course, there's the car chase. I don't know about you but I think I may have heard too much about it to really enjoy it the first time I saw it. However, I have come to realize that this really is the definitive car chase. Its' successors have generally overdone their chase scenes by focussing on the collateral damage rather than the chase itself.
"Bullitt" is not a work of art but it is a great movie. It may be hard to tell who the good guys are, it may be hard to understand WHY everything that happened had to happen, and it may be unclear as to just what the ending means. However, if you watch it without expectations, it is sure to exceed them.
Rating:
Summary: HORRIBLE
Review: This is definately one of the most boring movies I have ever seen. I bought the title because of the ravings about the car chase and forced myself through the rest of the film. Since everyone else rated this movie so well, you might think I'm an idiot for my opinion. If you haven't seen the movie, give it a try and you decide. Oh, and Bullitt and his 68 Mustang are NOT CHASING A GTO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IT'S A CHARGER!!!!!!!!!!!
Thank you very much for your time and consideration!
Rating:
Summary: See why Steve McQueen was the
Review: What a tragedy it was the day in 1980 we lost Steve McQueen at age 50. To those who don't remember what a huge star Hollywood's "King of Cool" was, think what a shock it would be if in just five years Tom Cruise died of cancer. THAT is how big McQueen was, and kids today don't even know his name. For those who are curious, I recommend three films: 1972's "The Getaway," 1963's "The Great Escape," and the film that formed the cornerstone of his reputation, 1968's "Bullitt."
Actually, "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and "Lethal Weapon" fans may be disappointed since "Bullitt" is not so much an action thriller as a police procedural and character study centering on Frank Bullitt (McQueen), a laconic, lone-wolf police detective. Bullitt and his partners are chosen by their superiors to protect a mob witness who is due to testify in a high-profile criminal trial that an ambitious politician named Chalmers (Robert Vaughn) has staked his reputation and career on. Unfortunately, Bullitt's team is set up and the witness and partners are shot and left for dead. Bullitt is then left to figure out what happened, all while being stalked by a steely gray-haired [...] and his accomplice.
The centerpiece of "Bullitt"'s reputation, along with McQueen's legendary performance, is a hair-raising, high-octane car chase between Bullitt and the assassins through the streets of San Francisco that lasts nearly 20 minutes of screen time. So famous and so expertly was this sequence staged that the film won an Oscar for film editing even though it received only one other minor nomination (for Best Sound), which is almost unheard of. There is also an exciting chase and shootout across the runways of San Francisco International Airport that ends the film, but other than that action enthusiasts may be disappointed. However, those who like stories that actually make sense, have characters that are believable everymen and not just superhuman killing machines and feature action sequences that serve the plot and are not just tacked on to top everything that has come before will love this film.
The performances are uniformly expert, with standouts including Norman Fell and Simon Oakland as Bullitt's no-nonsense superiors, Georg Stanford Brown as a doctor, and John Aprea as the nearly mute, hair-raising [...]. Vaughn is a worthwhile adversary as a politician who (surprise!) is ambitious to the point he can't be trusted, and Jacqueline Bisset has a few touching scenes as Bullitt's sensitive girlfriend who has a hard time reconciling the quiet man she loves with the policeman who is so jaded he can look at a young female murder victim and not be moved in the least. And watch for Robert Duvall as a cab driver and Joanna Cassidy in a blink-and-you'll miss her bit.
But this is McQueen's film the entire way and he is absolutely legendary in a role that, along with Gene Hackman's Popeye Doyle in "The French Connection" and Clint Eastwood's "Dirty Harry" Callahan, created the modern screen image of the iconic, tough police officer. My guess is he has maybe fifty lines in the entire movie, but when he does talk, he wastes no words and every steely stare speaks volumes. And did I mention his chief support is the coolest automobile in screen history, a green 1968 Ford Mustang, which is almost as memorable as the character of Bullitt himself?
In addition, McQueen is aided immeasurable by Peter Yates' expert direction and the rock-solid script, which substitute thrills with unyielding realism. The photography and music are stellar, and the editing, well, as I said before, is Oscar-winning.
In all, "Bullitt" is one legendary film that has aged well, still looks great after 36 years and remains thrilling to this day. Serious film and action fans will not be bored, although thrill-seekers might. As for the DVD, it's a good, though not great package that is presented in its original 1:85:1 aspect ratio. In all, its a great introduction to a true movie star who deserves to be rediscovered by future generations of film fans. **** (out of *****)
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