The idea of a crime-fighter being as vicious, mean, and nasty as the criminals he fights is as old as the coinage of "hard-boiled." What perhaps has changed a little is the attitude towards him, the withholding of any assurance that such methods are justified by their ends (cf. Dirty Harry and his ancestors). The real hero here is clearly meant to be, as in any film that aspires to recognition as a full-blown work of art, the director of the piece, William Friedkin: knowing, cynical, tough as nails, nobody's fool. It would be easier to identify with him as such, which is not to say agree with him but just to grant him his heroic stature, if one could believe he believed in this vision himself. And it would be easier to believe he believed it if he did not yield at every turn to the merely modish -- in photography, in musical accompaniment, in goriness, etc. In that respect, the supposed centerpiece of the film -- the marathon car chase to top the one in Friedkin's French Connection -- is really its sinkhole. And as the action is exaggerated, so is the thought behind it. Friedkin's portrayal of crime-fighters, though it plays to a different and more select segment of the audience than that solicited by a car hurtling down the freeway against the traffic flow (its occupants helpfully yelling "Get out of the way!"), is no less a product of fashion. It is simply a product of fashion ten or twelve years past its peak. And amid its acquiescent trimmings, it looks almost like bravery. With William L. Petersen, Willem Dafoe, and John Pankow. (1985) — Duncan Shepherd