U.N. Owen I'm Born, raised - and still live in NYC.Seeing this movie made me (like a lot of my fellow NYC'ers) pine for those days.It was a great place to grow up - made you 'get with it' really fast.I'd never heard of this film (and I know Mr. Gorman!), so, when it appeared last night on TCM, I recorded it.What a find!The sights and sounds bring back a lot of memories, as does even the film's stock, and the look. All pitch-perfect.The acting's superb. Instead of the (misguided) idea of using 'star' names, the producers and the director went for ACTORS - New York actors. ANd that makes all the difference.The leads, Cliff Gorman and Joseph Bologna are 2 schlubs - cops, who know they're stuck ion a treadmill.They want SOME way to get out - to 'go sit on a beach,' and enjoy their lives.So, through a meeting by happenstance, with a well-known Mafioso figure 'Pasquale Aniello' aka Patsy O'Neill, they think they've found a way to meet their goal.Everyone in the cast is so New York, the director - Aram Avakian - is a born New Yorker, and it really does help give this film that true feel.You can see it in such things like the ways the cops slouch.The little touches - such as the annoying Muzak that plays in a couple of scenes - gives the humor (this IS a comedy) a real NYC feel. It's dry, it's got a 'been there,' jaded quality that is so typical.I join the chorus in praising this little gem.If it shows up - WATCH IT.

st-shot New York City cops Tom and Joe are in the mist of burn out. Why me syndrome eats at them in every way including getting in the wrong lane on the highway. They decide on a bold move to remove themselves from the relentless rat race by stealing and selling security bonds to the mob while remaining untraceable themselves.Cops and Robbers is a very decent suspense comedy overachiever. Lack of star power works in its favor with Cliff Gorman and Joseph Bologna as the two rogue cops as non-descript everydays they ooze New York and are not required to perform acts of cool bravado to protect their careers. They are not master thieves, instead learning as they go along and it's this thin ice approach that gives the film it's well paced balance of humor and suspense. Made during the Serpico era when the NYPD was swimming in corruption it's hard not to root for these dirty cops being squeezed on both sides. It may be a low rent sting but it does have the benefit of bluffing the audience deeper into the final moments than predictable outcomes reserved for superstars like Newman and Redford.

JLRMovieReviews Cliff Gorman and Joseph Bologna star in this movie about two cops who are looking forward to their retirement and want to rob somewhere, but where, for some extra money. (They get paid squat.) One of them goes to a mobster with a proposition in exchange for some information, so that they'll know what and where is the best place. They're told to rob a securities bank for bonds worth a lot of money. But then, there's an unexpected twist.This is a great little film that I thoroughly enjoyed. I was afraid it was going to get really bloody and violent, because it has that feel to it like anything can happen. In fact, at the beginning, there's a fracas that's a little jarring with the yelling and the tension. But essentially we are being shown an average day in the life of a police officer in New York City, from encounters on the street to petty things in the office, which Bologna and Gorman are getting pretty tired of.(Sidenote: It costars Ellen Holly, who was mainly a Broadway actress and made only a few movies and who is known as Carla Gray from One Life to Live as the woman who "passed." I was too young at the time to remember her role, but she was a very beautiful actress.) Getting back to the movie: If you get a chance to see this, which is going to be rare, watch it please. It's a chance to see these stars as cops and as robbers.

Robert J. Maxwell It's a pretty dumb title -- "Cops and Robbers." Sounds as if it ought to be a gritty urban crime tale starring maybe Steven Segal. Instead it's a good-natured look at two ordinary New York City cops who are tired of the violence and selfishness they see on the job, the greed and perspiration. They dream about getting their share of the goods too so that one of them (Cliff Gorman) can take his family to Bermuda and the other (Joseph Bologna) can become a farmer in Saskatchewan.The cops contact a mafioso (John Ryan) and tell him they want to get out, and they plan on doing it by stealing something and selling it to him for disposal. "What do you plan to steal?" asks Ryan. "Whatever you'll pay two million dollars for," replies Gorman.So they stage a robbery along lines suggested by Ryan, robbing an investment firm of ten million dollars worth of bearer bonds. The man who runs the firm, Mr. Eastpool (Shephard Strudwick) and his secretary (Ellen Holly, a dish) cooperate fully -- and for good reason. Afterward they claim TWELVE million was stolen, stealing the extra two million for themselves. "One million apiece!" Bologna exclaims in disgust. The two don't actually steal anything because they are forced by circumstances to destroy the bonds. But they cheat Ryan out of the two million he agreed to pay, and the film ends with the pair lazing in the back yard of their modest home, smiling and gazing contentedly at an airliner way up there in the sky.The amusement is tempered with a good deal of suspense before and after the robbery as the usual things go wrong and reality intrusions occur.Gorman and Bologna work well together, the former slightly wall eyed and a little insane, the latter cherubic and frightened. In their false mustaches, each looks a little like Groucho Marx. Strudwick and Holly are better than simply good enough, too.Much of the credit must go to the director, Aram Avakian, watching whose documentary, "Jazz on a Summer's Day," was almost as good as being there. Avakian gets a lot of smiles out of events in long shot. (The kids might not get it.) Example: Ryan is having his record typed up for an interview in the police station, looking very very Italian. "What's your name?" asks the cop tonelessly from behind the desk. "Patsy O'Neal," replies the smiling Ryan easily. The cop doesn't bat an eye as he types in, "Anielli, Pasquale." Well, another example, because that last one didn't involve a long shot. A half dozen mafia types wearing shades and flowered shirts are leaning against the wall in front of a high mafioso's headquarters when Ryan's long limousine pulls up. Ryan sits patiently in the car while the armed goons spread out in a circle, like the Praetorian Guard, hands fondling the guns packed into their belts, eyes searching for enemies. Nothing much is made of it but the scene is quite funny. I won't describe any of the other amusing scenes except to say that you have to look for them. The comedy is effective but not outrageous. Nobody falls on his behind, and after the first few minutes there is no shooting.Easy going and diverting film, worth watching.