Directed by:
Richard FleischerCinematography:
Ralph WoolseyComposer:
Quincy JonesCast:
George C. Scott, Stacy Keach, Jane Alexander, Scott Wilson, Rosalind Cash, Erik Estrada, Clifton James, James Sikking, Burke Byrnes, William Atherton (more)Plots(1)
Roy is the young patrolman introduced into the ways of Los Angeles street life by Kilvinsky, the philosophical old pro. Kilvinsky is just short of retirement and wants to educate Roy to succeed him when he leaves. Officer Roy Fehler and his three friends are members of a big city police force where danger is part of the daily routine. Along with a veteran cop, Kilvinsky, they cruise their beat, tangling with bank robbers and rousting prostitutes, quieting gang wars and rescuing abused children, rounding up dope addicts and facing emergencies from race riots to car chases. Watchdogs of property and morals, these "New Centurions" are sometimes revered as father confessors, while at others, despised as brutes. To Kilvinsky, the cop's life is his sole reason to live, and when he contemplates the emptiness of retirement, his only solution is suicide. On the other hand, it's a life that comes to destroy Fehler's marriage to Dorothy as he escapes into a love affair. (official distributor synopsis)
(more)Reviews (2)
You can't teach new tricks to an old dog. Richard Fleischer was a film giant, a representative of old classic Hollywood, who wanted to catch up with the fresh wave of New Hollywood. He chose a topical theme that resonated in society and about which he had no idea, and it didn't work. It's such a succession of episodes, without any unifying storyline, George C. Scott, the main attraction, is on the sidelines, the motivation for his fatal move is very poor. The whole thing has a terribly soporific pace, even though it shows everyday police work, deals with crime, drugs and violence against women. And when it comes to the intimate scenes, Stacy Keach can't sell them as an actor, with some shallow elevator music playing in the background. It's historically interesting from perhaps the only two perspectives that would absolutely not pass today as they are racist and socially objectionable: blacks are here as the despicable dregs of society who only make trouble, as are gays when a cop tells his wife that he and his colleagues were hunting fags in the park.
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An unadorned night routine of ordinary police officers in the form of a raw police procedure, which is in many respects ahead of its time (this style will be followed by the Fort Apache the Bronx a decade later. Most similar movies are devoted to detectives and not to patrol / cavalry policemen). The plot is absent, these are purely stories from night shifts in a neglected neighborhood from a time when no one considered inappropriate that the LAPD was not being diplomatic, rules and regulations rather loose (or non-existent) and the role of Hispanics and African Americans in society was view by the police as not that important. Naturalistic, truly in the style of seventies, brilliant acting, with a love for the profession and the city, and in the second half, after all, noticeably lacking gradation or at least some development.
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Gallery (41)
Photo © Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc.
![The New Centurions - Photos](http://image.pmgstatic.com/cache/resized/w663/files/images/film/photos/161/405/161405689_55a104.jpg)
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