You won't be disappointed!

Sadly Over-hyped

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

Outrageous, obnoxious, violent, sexist, profane, vulgar, and raw in almost all aspects of its production, this crimer-comedy from 1974 is infamous not just for its aforementioned exploitation movie-poster adjectives but the hilarious chemistry between co-bastards James Caan and Alan Arkin. Truly the prototype 70s movie that defies even the most elementary descriptions: is it a comedy? A fascist cop thriller? A slapstick kid's movie? All of the above. Well, maybe not a kid's movie, though I caught it on network t.v.--illegally--as a impressionable 8 year old. Detectives Caan and Arkin are looking to nail a blowhard crime kingpin in San Francisco, and, basically, reduce the entire city to rubble in the process. Additionally, the number of endangered background extras featured on-screen must have resulted in numerous lawsuits and--very likely--hospitalizations. Fact has it that Caan and Arkin both allied against director Richard Rush during production, their excuse being he was jeopardizing their lives. One scene depicting an airborne Plymouth Fury being birthed out of a tunnel beneath the Panam building, at easily 50 m.p.h., and nearly decapitating a man, is beyond explanation. As if the immensely destructive, punctuating car chases aren't enough to earn the movie its R rating, the completely rancid dialog between its leads makes the buddy cop films of the 80s appear positively anemic. Nonetheless, right when you think the film's poorly written--more like scribbled--female characters couldn't get any worse (or neglected), the luminous Valerie Harper appears in a knockout scene as the wife of Arkin. Here the movie takes on an entirely different mood, providing both actors the opportunity to humanize an otherwise staunchly sociopathic tale of brutal police work tempered by wonderful doo-doo and ethnic humor. Plenty of highlights, including cameos by both Paul Koslo and a supremely icky Christopher Morley. The joyful music score is obviously another stab at political correctness. It's bouncy theme song inclined my over-age toddler's ass to tune in, possibly expecting a movie about wacky clowns rather than dirty cops who drive cars through parades, shoot people while they're dropping deuce, yell racial epithets, abuse suspects, talk about deviant love-making, and destroy everything from art fairs to posh restaurants with vehicles, motorcycles, or their bare hands. For connoissuers of 70s cinema, this is the one.

An almost perfect movie. Richard Rush, who, up until this point, was known primarily as the director of a bunch of biker films that WEREN'T EASY RIDER, directed this inspired lunacy that teams James Caan and Alan Arkin as cops who'll do whatever it takes to nail dapper mobster Jack Kruschen. Caan and Arkin have chemistry to burn and the script by Robert Kaufman is very biting. Rush's direction is stellar as the film is nearly breathtakingly fast paced. The chase scenes in this film are great. It's funny, violent, and sometimes creepy (check out Christopher Morley as a very unpleasant transvestite). With Alex Rocco, Mike Kellin, Loretta Swit, and Valerie Harper, who has a small role as Arkin's hot-blooded wife Consuelo.

I have been laughing myself silly at this movie since I first saw it on Christmas Day, 1974.Funny, violent, loud and much like a traffic accident in that you can't look away. Freebie and the Bean is like a truly tasteless joke; you know it is probably wrong and still you laugh so hard.Two lovably inept cops manage to keep from being suspended while they attempt to protect a local mobster from out of town hit men. Richard Rush's comedy chase film contains the wildest car crashes this side of The Blues Brothers.With a healthy dose of sexist, racist and scatological humor, you just need to chill out and enjoy the jokes and one liners. James Caan and Alan Arkin assume the usual buddy cop roles and run wild. Relax, it's just a movie made at a time when we weren't so paranoid about poking fun at our differences.Best scenes? The car chase that ends up on the third floor, the bowling alley shootout in the men's room and the mano a mano (sort of) confrontation in the ladies' room at the Super Bowl.The banter between Freebie and Bean is priceless, including a terrific exchange where we don't know if they're discussing a wife's infidelity or the dog stools in the yard. Great script by Robert Kaufman (Love at First Bite) and story by the incredible Floyd Mutrux (American Hot Wax, The Hollywood Knights). Warner Home Video, a company that does listen to movie fans, promised us this DVD release for years, and now they have delivered. If you haven't seen this comedy classic in widescreen, you will be impressed!

Thoroughly enjoyable to watch, Alan Arkin and James Caan make a great comedy duo. Plus, perhaps the only time you'll ever see a car crash through a third-story window.Here's a spoiler -- and what lifts this movie above most others in the genre: After an hour and a half of silly shenanigans, you suddenly discover that there was a serious plot going on. One is tempted to start the film over from the beginning because you clearly weren't paying enough attention.The one downside of the film, IMHO, is the ending, where one guy that's supposedly seriously hurt is suddenly OK and being silly again. That didn't work for me.