Fuzz (1972)

***SPOILERS*** There's these two snot-nose teenagers out to clean up the neighborhood by setting homeless persons on fire. I guess murderers rapists and muggers were a little too tough for these fearless heroes to handle. This leads Det. Carella, Burt Reynolds, to go undercover in hand-me-down cloths as bait to catch these self-anointed crime fighters. It seemed that Carella was so surprised that the two were overage bed wetters, like you have to be a grown up to do these kind of things, that he loses his concentration drops his guard and almost gets burned to death by them throwing a lit can of gasoline on him.

At the Boston 87th precinct police station there's a call demanding $5,000.00 or else the parks commissioner would be killed. Laughing off the threat a while later like the call said the commissioner is blown up in his car going to a political dinner. The threats to murder top city officials and the two young creeps setting homeless men on fire at first have nothing to do with each other at first. Yet by the time the movie "Fuzz" is over they somehow become connected to give the movie a happy, and ironic, ending.

"Fuzz" is a M.A.S.H like story of police in the big city with some dozen sub-plots going on all at once. The sub-plots make you feel like your watching four or five movies, by turning the channels, at one time. For us guys in the audience there's busty and almost unapproachable especially by Det. Carella, who's can't even get into a single scene with her, Det. Eileen McHenry, Raquel Welch. Det.McHenry is assigned to the 87th as a specialist in rape cases. Later she's put undercover, or under the covers, with cute and cuddly as a Teddy Bear Det. Kling, Tom Skeritt, in trying to find who's extorting the city of thousands of dollars in threats to kill off it's top officials.

The film "Fuzz" has a number of scenes that are totally unconnected with the extortion plot by this El Sordo, Yul Brynner, better known as the guy with the thing, hearing aid, in his ear who's the main villain in the movie. Where as for the two aforementioned wimpy teenage "crime fighter", who fight crime by setting innocent and helpless bums or hobos on fire, are just too cowardly and stupid to be anything approaching a criminal master mind or villain like El Sordo the bald headed deaf man.

Unelievably complicated ending with El Sordo and his gang about to celebrate their blowing up of Boston's City Hall going to a liquor store, to buy a bottle of champaign. The liquor store that's about to be robbed by these two not too bright hoodlums Tony & Pete, Don Gordon & Charles Tyner, of a big $86.00 in the till, with Det. Carella and his partner the bumbling Det. Meyer, Jack Weston, assigned to stake the place out.

The shootout that follows foils El Sordo's plan to blow up City Hall with his plans discovered by Det. Kling who just happened to show up. The now on the run deaf one, soaked with booze after the liquor store shootout, ends up passing out along the docks only to run into the two teenage crime fighter, mistaking him for a drunken bum, who set the poor and almost unconscious man on fire with a Molotov cocktail.

What's really interesting about the movie "Fuzz" is that it's two top stars Burt Reynolds and Raquel Welch weren't even on speaking terms with each other, on and off the screen. Which made it very difficult if not impossible for any interaction between the two. It was as if you were watching a split-screen of two different films with two totally different stories. El Sordo did somehow survive his ordeal as the movie ended to the tune of Burt's girlfriend, at the time, the late Dina Shore singing "I'll be seeing you". Still after that final scene in the movie "Fuzz" that was the last time we ever saw him since there was no "Fuzz" sequel.