Watch Badge 373 For Free

Simply A Masterpiece

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

The acting in this movie is really good.

Based on the true story of officer Eddie Egan,, who also has a small part in this movie,, I found it to be urban gritty, and to the point,, after he get's suspended from the force for causing the death of a bad guy,, he takes up bartending part time.. he later find out that his partner was viciously gunned down,, now he must take action 'Dirty Harry" style,, he sets out on a mission with only one thing in mind,, get the man or men that killed his partner,, the bad guys are led by a character named "Sweet William" , and now the battle is on good vs. evil,, sure this isn't gonna win any awards by no stretch of the imagination and certainly pales compared to the French Connection,, but this is a movie worthwhile of you're time.

In watching Badge 373 I can't believe that Pete Hamill normally a trenchant observer of New York's social and political scene could write such a mediocre film. If you're an action junkie you'll like it and if you're not politically correct you'll love it.Hamill really let his own views get the better of him here. The dirty little secret about the Independista movement in Puerto Rico is how little support it does command. If you were to take this film as gospel you would believe that the entire South Bronx was a hotbed of revolutionary activity.In a film that was inspired by real life New York detective Eddie Eagan, the inspiration also for Gene Hackman's Popeye Doyle in The French Connection, Robert Duvall during a police raid chased a junkie suspect up to a roof where he fell in trying to apprehend him. Of course there were accusations that Duvall helped him along. It wasn't true, but the accusations were enough to force a suspension and departmental inquiry. Truth also be told Duvall hasn't got the kindest feeling toward the Latino community and they know it.While he's on suspension and working as a bartender, Duvall's partner Louis Cosentino is killed and Duvall though he's suspended and carries no badge or gun decides to investigate on his own. Quite frankly there was no reason not to let the NYPD handle the shooting of one of their own. But Duvall misses the action and wants blood.He gains access to information through bluff and bluster without the badge, but he sure has reason to regret not carrying some kind of piece before the film is over. He's lucky to survive and remedy what he should have done in the first place. John Wayne in McQ was smart enough to hire out to a friend's private investigation firm so he would have cover to carry a weapon, why didn't Duvall think of that?And then the idiot compounds it all by involving poor Verna Bloom, a waitress he's been keeping company with in his pursuit of arch criminal Henry Darrow. Duvall gets her killed quite unnecessarily. Bloom and Darrow give the best performances in Badge 373.I can't believe that Eddie Eagan himself gave some kind of official imprimatur by appearing in this. I suppose he might have owed Pete Hamill a favor. Duvall was coming off his Academy Award nominated performance in The Godfather and Badge 373 was quite a comedown. It had potential to be better, but I think only action junkies will really like this film.

I've rated over 2,600 films on Netflix, and this is the film I always think of as the WORST film I've ever seen. Ludicrous action scenes, idiotic dialogue, illogical story, laughable acting (even Robert Duvall wasn't taking this seriously). The story layers on melodrama in an attempt to give the characters motivation for their absurd actions, but it's not close to believable. They even cast Eddie Egan (the real life inspiration for the main character) in a minor role to give the film some credibility. They tried to cash in on the success of French Connection, but misfired on all cylinders. I don't know what film the previous reviewer saw, but this one is on the Top Ten Turkey list, all time.

Robert Duvall is one of my favorite people to watch on screen. He doesn't have a tremendously deep bag of tricks, but he's serious and earnest and I hope he keeps working for a long, long time. I say this partly because he's good and he has some more penance to do to make up for Badge 373, a perfect zero of a cops and robbers flick.What was Duvall thinking when he made this clichéd glob of TVish trash? He was coming off the glory of The Godfather. Did he just sign anything he could get his hands on thinking that with his stellar performance as Tom Hagen, people would flock to see him in anything? There's absolutely nothing likable about this movie. I enjoyed the big, muscular cars of the early 70's, but that's not enough to keep one's attention span from snapping pretty darn quickly. The cinematography was lifeless, the color was garish, the pacing and plotting and canned music were all dull, and there wasn't a single person, plot device, or line of dialogue that was the slightest bit interesting.I didn't care about Duvall's Eddie Ryan. The only character who even showed up on my radar was Verna Bloom, Ryan's girlfriend. She's a big, painted zoftig woman who looks utterly different in High Plains Drifter and Animal House. I liked her, but all she can do is squeal her Brooklyn accent, get hurt by Eddie, and die dramatically.The rest of the movie is just so much clichéd nonsense with one scene stacked on top another, giving Duvall a chance to spurt racial epithets, threaten revenge for his murdered partner (Oh, you didn't see it coming that Ryan's partner gets killed early on? Duh!), get thumped in a ludicrous bus/Puerto Rican gangster chase scene, practice to shoot with his left hand, drive some really cool Dodges and Plymouths, and have the worst case of thought bubble flashbacks to remind him and us why he's just going to have to blast the head bad guy when he corners him on some sort of crane.Howard Koch did some really good work in his career; here he directs an astonishingly bad mixture of R-rated cop movie and TV drama. The whole thing just looks so cheap and silly and you have to wonder just how many good movies Duvall will still need to make to cleanse his soul of the sin of Badge 373.