SnoopyStyle
A serial killer is hunting New York City. Grizzled veteran police detective Edward Delaney (Frank Sinatra) is investigating the case. His wife Barbara (Faye Dunaway) is in the hospital. He enlists the help of ancient arms expert Christopher Langley. Sinatra is playing a tired cop who is distracted by his wife's illness. It does not make for a compelling investigation although it may be more accurate. It's a darker reserved performance. The more exciting character is eager Langley searching for the murder weapon in the local shops. He has a couple of hilarious scenes. Otherwise, this is grinding film about the grind of a grinding investigation. While I appreciate the personal aspect of the wife, it doesn't make it compelling as far as the investigation goes. Although it does not excuse the horrible insult of someone nominating Dunaway as the worst actress. The woman is in bed dying for most of the movie and that's what she gives. This is a bit of a grind to watch but it somehow maintains my attention for the most part.
moonspinner55
Middle-aged talents hoping to keep up with the current tastes in cinema. Frank Sinatra is a police inspector in New York City, just weeks away from retirement, who notices similarities in a series of murder victims: the skulls of the deceased have all been punctured by some kind of hammer, possibly delivered from behind in a cold blow. With so many TV cop shows mining this territory, the only reason for the producers to do a theatrical adaptation of Lawrence Sanders' novel was to get Sinatra on-screen again (he hadn't acted since 1977's "Contract on Cherry Street" for television). You can tell right away director Brian G. Hutton and his editor are aiming low: the opening sequence crosscuts between a violent murder on a dark, cold street and a woman in the hospital being sliced open by surgeons. That woman, Faye Dunaway, plays Sinatra's wife, slowly succumbing to a mystery infection that has already rotted her liver, and it's a humiliating role. Far better off are James Whitmore as a pathologist and Brenda Vaccaro as the wife of a victim. Anthony Zerbe gets stuck with the proverbial hard-ass police commander role (he chews Sinatra out for following the insane 'serial killer' angle), but Sinatra does a good job here, keeping a cool head and carrying most of the picture with his innate panache. ** from ****
sddavis63
Frank Sinatra put on a pretty decent performance here (in what's billed as his last starring performance, although he was in "Cannonball Run II" a few years later) as Edward X. Delaney - a New York City police detective weeks away from retirement, who gets caught up in a murder investigation that his commanding officer (for reasons I never clearly understood) would prefer him to leave alone. Sinatra's performance, though, was really the only thing that made this movie worth watching. The story of the search for the psychopathic killer wasn't all that interesting, and while the subplot revolving around the illness of Delaney's hospital-bound wife (a rather simple role played by Faye Dunaway) took up a fair amount of screen time, it also added nothing to spark the movie, except perhaps to ground Delaney as a loving husband. Delaney does come across as a sympathetic character for the most part, although he's a cop willing to go to any lengths (legal or otherwise) to get this killer. Aside from that there was one very effective scene in which the curator Langley (Martin Gabel) goes to a hardware store trying to figure out what the murder weapon was which added some welcome comedy relief to this otherwise rather poorly structured and poorly paced movie, which I would frankly have to say was one of the least exciting and least interesting murder mysteries I've ever seen.
boknyc
I recently watched this movie only because it was on my high def station and it "looked" pretty good, but after waiting over an hour to become interested in it, it ended with a confusing and ho-hum climax. Sinatra sleepwalks through the entire movie and looks completely bored. Faye has one of the worst roles in movie history. Can someone explain this ending to me sometime? On second thought, don't bother. If you love Frank and NYC movies from the 80s, this might work for you, but only if you don't mind a story that never really achieves liftoff. The Dunaway role is such a waste of her talent, and him calling her "kiddo" in every scene kind of creeped me out.
AD
