Bullitt: The First and still one of the Best

Some may beg to differ, but I am firmly in the camp that Bullitt is the first modern action movie.





The movie, starring Steve McQueen, continues to inspire movies to present day.





McQueen is a maverick police lieutenant of the SFPD. He's chosen to head up a unit charged with protecting a witness vital to the case being tried by Rober Vaughn.





Everything seems to be going okay, when for some reason the witness surreptiously unlocks the doorafter getting telephone call. Two men come in and kill the guards and the witness. When McQueen hits the scene, one of the guards gasps out the witness unlocked the door.





McQueen hides the witness. Both the crooks and the DA want him. We get the classic line, "you work your side of the street, I'll work mine." Bullitt is hampered by the politicians in soving the case, but is defended by his Captain, played by Simon Oakland.



There is surprisingly little action in this movie, with three set pieces, all of them chase scenes. Bullitt chases a hitman through a cavernous hospital. Then the classic car chase with the fastback Ford Mustang, which cruises through the hills near San Francisco, which ends in a fiery explosion. Finally, they get the bad guy in a chase through an airport, complete with gunplay.



McQueen's Bullitt is surprisingly human for an action hero. The entire character is set up in a very short montage in the beginning of the movie, and we see the bond between he and his woman, Jacquline Bisset. Unlike all too many of paramours of action heroes, she actually seems to be worth having and isn't totally neurotic. Simon Oakland is the big, bluff captain, that is in nearly every tough cop movie. Robert Vaughan's DA, while self interested, isn't completely loopy the way so many political types are in these movies. We also get the first appearance of the whacky informant. McQueen treats the informant much the same as Vaughan treats underlings that please him, in some subtle moral equivalence.



While most famous for its car chase, the movie is a great movie that will keep you interested. The plot and characters keep your attention, even in "the slow spots."