Review: Mitchell

Joe Don Baker plays the sleepy-eyed but dogged cop of the title who thinks there’s a criminal connection between sleazy lawyer John Saxon and crooked businessman (AKA drug kingpin) Martin Balsam. Harold J. Stone plays a criminal higher up on the chain than Saxon and Balsam. Robert Phillips plays the superior officer, Jerry Hardin is a desk sergeant, and Linda Evans plays a hooker/love interest for our leading man.

 

As shabby as its lead character and performance, this 1975 husky cop movie from director Andrew V. McLaglen (who later made the underrated actioner “The Wild Geese”) and screenwriter Ian Kennedy Martin (creator of TV’s “The Sweeney”) is an uneven experience. Lead actor Joe Don Baker’s performance is far from his best work. In fact, it’s proof that he’s a much better support player than lead. However, the bleary-eyed, yet determined cop character he plays here is not without some interest. His often lack of giveashit is amusing at times. Baker’s Mitchell actually reminds me a bit of the title character in the Aussie cop show “Bluey” (brilliantly dubbed and spoofed on “The Late Show” as the re-titled “Bargearse”), and Baker’s ‘just crawled out of bed and still hungover’ demeanour certainly are a different vibe from “Shaft” and “Dirty Harry”.

 

More problematic is McLaglen’s sleepy direction, the film greatly lacks energy and muscle. It’s one thing for the lead character to be a bit lazy-seeming, but it’s not something you want from the film itself. I don’t think the film is as bad as its oft-mocked reputation (mostly people who have seen a crudely edited version on TV), but there’s definitely problems here and McLaglen’s direction being the biggest. I also didn’t quite buy Linda Evans as the leading lady, her performance seemed completely ‘off’ to me and I think she belonged elsewhere.

 

Thankfully the support cast here is damn solid, with an astonishingly oily John Saxon stealing his too-few scenes. Martin Balsam and a stoic Harold J. Stone are also good as the other two villains. A good, if typical blaxploitation-esque music score by Larry Brown (who did a lot of TV work) and Jerry Styner (the OK “…tick…tick…tick…”) tries to inject some life into the proceedings.

 

Serviceable at best 70s cop movie featuring an unconventional lead and awfully sluggish direction. The supporting cast do what they can, but this one’s as sleep-deprived as the title character.

 

Rating: C+

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