Ed Madsen Movies
- 1974
- R
Fed up with an escalating crime rate and an increasingly ineffective police force, blue-collar New Yorkers Willie and Cy (Carroll O'Connor and Ernest Borgnine) join a citizen's vigilante group. Their efforts to act as an auxiliary police force are comically inept, but director Ivan Passer lulls us into laughter only to catch us unprepared when he wants to play things in dead seriousness. After finally proving their worth as after-hours cops, Willie and Cy are euphoric; this lasts just long enough for Cy to be killed. Constantly changing its tone and point of view, Law and Disorder struck just the right nihilistic note in the 1970s. Modern viewers may not be quite as responsive, though many will cheer Willie's final act of defiance against the Big Apple. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Born to Win is the grimly ironic title of this jet-black comedy about heroin addicts. George Segal plays Jay Jay, an ex-hairdresser who struggles to support his expensive drug habit. To avoid arrest, Jay Jay turns "narc," informing on his fellow junkies. Eventually Jay Jay's sense of self-hatred threatens to overwhelm him. Also released as Born to Lose and Addict, Born to Win was the first American film for Czech director Ivan Passer. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- George Segal, Karen Black, (more)
