Art Vandelay This isn't funny or dramatic. Just a badly acted cartoon showing incompetent cops pulling stunts that would get them killed in real life. Liebman and Selby are so desperate, white and obvious, it's impossible to believe how any street-wise hustler in 70s NYC couldn't smell the bacon from a while away. Harold Ramis pretending to be a cop on SCTV's Undercover Mountie was more realistic. But they hit upon a plan to trample the civil rights of the neighbourhood ne'er-do-wells as a way to shake down the street dealers and work their way up to the local heroin dealer. I wouldn't be surprised if the DEA use this as a training film. For all the criticism Dirty Harry received as a fascist film, when it was really more like cop fantasia - ie. license to blow away the bad guys - this movie is likely closer to the subversive truth about how the po-po will stop at nothing to make their bust and go home safe. As an added bonus, Liebman grins his way through every scene. What the hell was so amusing. I'd be shocked if this movie got booked outside NYC. It has no appeal other than ''hey, look, they filmed that scene in front of my drug-infested tenement house!''

Dan Franzen (dfranzen70) The Super Cops is a police drama along the lines of Serpico, which was released a year earlier, with more emphasis on action and humor and less on retaliation within the police force. It's an under-appreciated, almost-forgotten gem that's carried by the charismatic lead characters, played by Ron Leibman (now known as the voice of Ron Cadillac in the FX series Archer) and David Selby.Leibman and Selbey play new cops Greenberg and Hantz who quickly tire of traffic duty and begin to solve crimes and bust crooks in their spare time. (No, really.) They accomplish this by thinking outside the rule book, in particular the one with the unwritten rules. They refuse to take bribes or grease palms. They receive assistance from convicted criminals. They stake out drug dealers in a giant cardboard box. All of this earns them some high profile busts and the enmity of pretty much every other cop in their precinct, particularly their new direct supervisor, Lt. O'Shaughnessy (Joseph Sirola).I realize this sounds like what's now a typical buddy-cop movie: a pair bucks the system to do what's right. And it sort of is a progenitor to those films. But look here, this story, based on the book by L. H. Whittemore, was a bit more groundbreaking than all of those Lethal Weapon clones we've seen over the past two decades. The cops aren't always good guys? They can make mistakes and have lapses in ethics? No one wants to see Greenburg and Hantz succeed, not nobody, not no how! But they do their best anyway, even if it means no advancement. They'll work in a crappy precinct for a jerky boss, even on desk or traffic duty, and then work cases in their spare time. Their spare time! The other cops try hard to dissuade the dynamic duo – nicknamed Batman and Robin for their comic-book-like exploits – from messing around with their traditional system of not caring (particularly after the shift's over). Meanwhile, Greenburg and Hantz just want to clean up one of New York's worst crack-infested areas, The Man be damned. They're crazy like foxes, is what they are. How crazy? They try to take down one baddie while the building they're in is being demolished. Pretty awesome scene.The Super Cops is available on DVD, finally. Seems the great Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) raved about this lost classic, and that somehow spurred the powers that be to release the movie to the public. So it's out there, and it's well worth your while.

dougdoepke The 60's loosened up movies a lot. It became okay, for example, to show crooked cops and real poverty. Older Hollywood in its preoccupation with glamour and the Cold War naturally shied away from such inflammatory topics. But the cultural revolt of the Vietnam period insisted on "telling it like it is", and I take this movie to be one of its products.Greenberg (Leibman) and Hantz (Selby) are a couple of rookie cop hotshots who rock the precinct boat with their zeal and unorthodox style. Too bad we never learn what in their backgrounds drives them. Instead, the movie follows them on their exploits without explaining much of anything. It's kind of like watching a collection of sports highlights without the developmental threads of a narrative. Still, the movie never drags or bores, plus the gritty shots of ghetto life are worth the admission price alone. Then too, the screenplay sure doesn't glamorize either the typical cop or precinct life generally. The "feel" here is of the real thing, one of the film's genuine strengths. Unlike most films, however, none of the movie's characters are particularly likable. In fact, I agree with the reviewer who found the quirky Greenberg annoying, while the subdued Hantz remains something of a cypher. Now, there's nothing inherently wrong with this, except by the end, the two appear just the same as they were at the beginning. In short, all the murder, mayhem and human misery have affected them not at all, one way or the other. All in all, the movie's an okay entry in the post-Serpico sweepstakes. Yet, despite its down-and-dirty look at urban policing, the story never manages any needed depth, despite the richness of the material.

Tiny-13 This film has slipped through the cracks of film history. It is by far much better than some other New York films of the same era such as: "The French Connection" or "The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3". There is a gritty reality to this film which also manages to effectively use humor to further the plot line. It's engaging from start to finish and hasn't tarnished with age as is the case with the above two examples.Ron Liebman turns in a bravura performance as "Batman" and it's a shame his career didn't take off as a result of this project.Gordon Parks directs and, coming as it does after "Shaft", it at first appears to be a strange choice. Yet it is the flip side of that earlier effort and approached with just as much in your face machismo.Unfortunately this film has not been made available on either DVD or VHS in the United States. United Artists really has a gem on their hands and it's a shame they're not doing anything with it.