In 1968 You Could Solve Any Mystery with a Bullitt!

This week Puneet finally entrusted me with one of his most favorite car movies: Bullitt from 1968. I should be clear right up front, before I saw this, I've never seen a Steve McQueen movie, and before Puneet brought up his name, I don't think I'd even heard it before either. As is with most films from this era, I expected to find little in the way of a story and whatever shallow reason to have a crazy car chase. Hit the jump to see if I was right or dead wrong.


It's my lucky day! I was wrong, Bullitt actually has an alright story to frame and give legitimate reason to what's going on. Bullitt is the name of Steve McQueen's character, and he's a cop who is initially put on a witness protection case. As you can guess, some hitmen show up and Bullitt becomes determined to find them before they can attack again. The real question is, can he solve the mystery of who is behind it all, and can he bring them to justice before it's too late?

One of the more surprising aspects is that this is an action movie from 1968 and it actually has good characters that are more than just cardboard cutouts. I get the feeling that I've just been seeing the wrong films, because this can't be the only movie with any amount of depth to it from that time period.

Steve McQueen does a good job as the cold hard as nails cop who doesn't know how to give up. But that's not the only side to him. He has a lovely girlfriend who he's kind to and when she stumbles into a crime scene, she provides a good contrast to him emotionally. She doesn't scream or get hysterical or anything stereotypical, but she's clearly troubled and shaken. Then when she sees that he has almost zero reaction as if he's just grocery shopping, she brings up a good point. Their worlds are vastly different, and his overexposure to this kind of thing has dulled him, desensitized him to something that should, at the very least, get some kind of reaction out of him. By the end of the film, with wordless silence and a single look in the mirror, we see that these things certainly do affect him. I found it to be quite a powerful and subtle moment.

Burn some rubber while you're at it!

Lastly I should bring up the car action. There's quite a good chase sequence in here that takes place in the hilly streets of San Fransisco. It starts off a little slow as the cars slow and speed up to avoid wrecking just going up and down the hills, but as it progresses they get faster and more daring. Soon they're flying in the air with every hill and speeding around corners with burning rubber. It all comes to a great conclusion once they get to a highway and really open up. Another fun fact is that they fixed mics onto the engine blocks of the cars so that through the whole chase you get to really hear the power of the motors and it's really great.

The film all comes to a decent ending that really reminded me of Heat, but of course that movie came far later and was probably partially inspired by Bullitt. To be honest though, while I didn't see the answer to the mystery coming for once, the high point of the movie was the car chase which meant after that was over, the film started to feel a little slow. As a side note, it was funny seeing a very young Robert Ducall in a bit part as a cabby. Anyways, check it out, the car chase is cool and the 60's vibe didn't come across as cheesy but instead seemed to give the film character. A nice change of pace for once.