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Just perfect...

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Dean Martin plays a serious, straightforward lawyer in "Marlowe" director Paul Bogart's "Mr. Ricco," a predictable but violent crime thriller set in contemporary San Francisco. "Mr. Ricco" constituted something of a change of pace for the "King of Cool." Unlike his frivolous Matt Helm espionage comedies, this Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer release followed the efforts of a conscientious lawyer to obtain justice for an African-American accused of murdering a white woman. Actually, nothing that Joe Ricco does on behalf of his client, Frankie Steele (Thalmus Rasulala of "Cool Breeze"), proves his innocence. Later, when Steele is on the run and Ricco catches up with him, Steele admits to him that he did indeed murder the white woman, but he explains that he didn't set out to kill her. Nevertheless, this revelation comes as something of a shock to Ricco. As it turned out, Steele won his freedom because the police had tampered with evidence in the case. Unfortunately, we're never told who was responsible for the tampering. No sooner has Steele been released that two uniformed policemen are gunned down by an African-American wielding a shotgun. A young African-American adolescent spots the shooter as he is fleeing the scene of the murder. The child goes to the police and gives them a description of the shooter that fits Steele's description. Later, Ricco finds himself the target of this same African-American shooter. This individual attempts to kill Ricco three times without success. Naturally, Captain George Cronyn (Eugene Roche of "Newman's Law") assigns a man, Lieutenant Barrett (George Tyne of "Sands of Iwo Jima"), to shadow the lawyer. Meantime, the police pursue a lead and nearly capture Steele at his place where he serves as an activist. It seems Steele has attained legitimacy as an outspoken racial activist with an organization that he created known as 'the Black Serpents." There isn't a trace of altruism in Steele's bones, and he wastes the funds that Washington provided him with to help poor, disadvantaged African-Americans. Moreover, when the San Francisco police raided his headquarters, they found two of his underlings on the premises, Purvis Mapes (Philip Michael Thomas of "Miami Vice") and his brother Calvin (Oliver Givens of "Trader Horn"), and Detective Tanner (Michael Gregory of "Total Recall") shoots Calvin in the head. Unfortunately for the gung-ho Tanner who is a dyed-in-the-wool racist, he discovers too late that Calvin was unarmed. Tanner grabs a shotgun and plants the weapon on Calvin. Initially, Captain Cronyn believes Tanner. Our hero defends Purvis in court and the charges against him are dropped. Consequently, Purvis tells Ricco where Steele is holed up and hiding. Ricco has to throw the police off his tail; he has his rental Mustang repainted to complicate their efforts to track him, and he finds Steele. Steele confesses about the murder, and Ricco punches him out. This crime melodrama taps into the racism of the day. Tanner believes that he should have been given a commendation for tampering with the evidence and later shooting Calvin Mapes. Meanwhile, Ricco is set up by his Cupid of a secretary, Jamison (Cindy Williams of "Laverne & Shirley"), with a woman, Katherine Fremont (Geraldine Brooks of "Johnny Tiger"), who is twice divorced. They sleep together after one date. Later, they attend an art auction for the ACLU that Purvis's sister Irene (Denise Nicholas of "Capricorn One") has set up. The shotgun-toting assailant strikes again, killing three police as well as shooting Katherine in the back and Lieutenant Barrett. Earlier that evening after the police arrested Steele, Ricco left a snub-nosed revolver in a drawer at his residence because he felt like he no longer needed the gun. He retrieved Lieutenant Barrett's revolver and shot the killer to death. The catch here is that Bogart wanted audiences to think that Steele was out to ice Ricco. Of course, why would Steele want to kill the man who got him cleared of a murder charge. Everything comes out of the wash during the final twenty minutes. "Mr. Ricco" is a believable, conventional, but entertaining crime mystery, and Martin gives a restrained but convincing performance. Lenser Paul Stanley who photographed "Mr. Ricco" makes it look smooth and elegant at the same time. The film's only stab at humor involves Ricco's horny dog Hank who eventually knocks up a neighbor's dog. Altogether, "Mr. Ricco" qualifies as an above-average movie.

Dean Martin's final lead role has somehow managed to slip under the radar of his fans and 70s crime thriller aficionados. Watching this, I expected to find some critical flaw that accounts for it, but found none. Maybe playing against genre expectations hurt the reception. To me that is not a flaw.Like others have said, this is a very 70s movie. This time the renegade is not a cop but a defense lawyer. Cop is not the law, he's there to enforce it, is the running theme. There are delightful gags involving Ricco's dog that could be from Columbo, and Dino makes fun of his own golf playing. Cindy Williams plays a spunky aid that Ricco tries to help find a man. Philip Michael Thomas of Miami Vice fame has a memorable early performance.Inspite of the mellow insider group, pay attention to the case. The action is on the streets. Not much happens inside a courtroom. You may think you are about to see an open and shut case, but there are twists and turns. There are clues as well. To avoid spoilers, avoid Robert Ebert's review that misses the point.

In its opening scenes and setup, this film had several enjoyable and potentially interesting aspects to it. Dean Martin as Ricco had a pleasing understated realism in his performance, a million miles away from the plastic phoniness of his Matt Helm persona.Even the small roles were acted well - ranging from Geraldine Brooks as the woman Martin hooks up with Ricco to Ella Edwards as Sally (who informs Ricco that her son was a witness to the killing of the two cops) who gives such a nice performance that its a shame we don't see her character again later in the film.Also the plot, while nothing astonishing, has enough potential and variables in it to keep us interested to the end. In addition, the music added nicely to the atmosphere.So why does the film end up as nothing better then mediocre? Because it really loses its way in the second half. Not only because the plot takes some ludicrous turns (more on that later) but of Ricco resorting to fighting with admittedly disreputable characters on more then one occasion. It's bad not only because Martin is too old for the physical stuff but it seems so out of character for the intelligent and considered person Martin portrays Ricco to be earlier in the film. The almost comical fight Ricco has with Frankie Steele is the film's lowpoint and when it descends from a potentially top-quality crime film to a mediocre TV-standard crime drama lazily resorting to violence as a resolution to scenes.(SPOILER) But it's the plot and its resolution that really let down this film. Roger Ebert's review (available in the External reviews section) is spot on - who the killer actually is is so arbitrary (not to mention unbelievable) that it makes a large portion of the film redundant.The killer is actually the brother of the woman murdered by Frankie Steele that Ricco got off the murder rap on technical grounds at the start of the film. There's a scene with the killer in the film but his appearance is so brief that when his mask is taken off some might not even recall who he actually is.It's a watchable film but it could've been so much better.

*Possible Spoilers*"Mr. Ricco" tells the story of Joe Ricco, an attorney who is hired to try and clean a young man of murder. After the trial, Ricco faces an assassin who hunts him down wherever he goes. Even when the police arrest who they believe to be the assassin in 100%, he still manages to bother Ricco. Ricco must find out who the assassin is, before he hurts him or the people he cares about.This is a nice movie to kill some time when you're bored, but certainly not a masterpiece. Dean Martin's acting is OK, but the whole plot is confusing.Only watch this if there's nothing interesting on TV...