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Plot: A young policeman (Robert Blake) spends his time patrolling throughout endless miles of desert and studying to become a detective. His big break appears when a local is found murdered in his cabin and a police detective asks him to help him with the investigation.

Comments: This film is a gem, plain and simple. Don't let the murder mystery plot fool you, what it does best is to describe Robert Blake's character and to serve as a record of what the 70s felt like. The first thing it achieves by giving Blake's character plenty of nuances. For instance, he has a hollier-than-you attitude that is both his forte (he refuses to arrest a wandering hippie on evidence planted by his partner) and his weakness, because it often interferes with his ego. As for the second thing, the film documents well the animosity between the police and the disgruntled youth of the era. A visit to a hippie comune in search of leads ends up with the detective endlessly brutalizing the kids. And later, an encounter with a bike gang leads to lots of unnecesary violence and even death.

The film's offbeat narration is also one of its strengths. There is a mystery to solve, but it often takes the foreground. What really make the film are the bits I mentioned, plus the desintegrating relationship between Blake's character and the detective's. The camerawork, precisely because of its amateurish-ness (the credits roll as we see Blake's character, headless, going through his morning routines) adds the exact touch of unpredictability to the mix, while the cinematography by Conrad Hall is top notch. As outrageous as it may sound, I'd consider this film much better than "Easy Rider".

I liked it but remember there being an awful lot of "acting" for my tastes. I don't tend to go for real "cinematic" type movies if that nakes any sense.

Have you seen Payday?

I don't think I ever heard of "Payday". Is it similar to this one? And BTW, what did you mean by "acting" and "cinematic"? I'm a bit confused.

Payday starring Rip Torn. It's kind of a hickspoloitation movie but kind of 4 star ish because of his acting.

I meant sort of stagey acting, lots of dialogue as opposed to the focus being on the action. going for more of a 4 star sort of thing

Ah, the dubious line between "good" movie/"bad" movie strikes again.

Neville, you've picked another gem from my youth.  You're so right, this is study of Blake's character and the murder mystery is just a mcguffin  to carry the film along. 

I've noticed that people 20 or more years younger than me have trouble with the pacing 70's movies, this might be what Lester1 is alluding to.  This was before the age of rapid fire editing and blowing something up every few minutes.

70's movies tended to be character driven , but that doesn't mean they are devoid of action .

I agree with your comments and have to say that the ending was a real surprise when I saw the film as a teenager.

I love this movie.  I had a VHS copy about 12 years ago.  Haven't picked it up on DVD yet.

No believe me I watch a s**t ton of 70's and earlier movies.  There is just a little more dramatic  dort og acting in this than I would have thought first

We talked about how "The A Team" underperfomred at the box office, as I haven't seen the film, I won't comment on whether it deserved to underpeform or not, but here is another film that underperformed at the box office, when it was first released to theaters. But having seen this one, I can say that sometimes great films do not do as well at the box office as they should. And this should have done better. Having seen it on TV (IMHO) a great film with a great performance by Robert Blake.