Bullitt Review & Analysis
Ticket Please
Director: Peter Yates
Starring: Steve McQueen
Bullitt, the 1968 crime-mystery film starring Steve McQueen is the first in this series. It’s the story of a cop (Frank Bullitt) who is put in charge of protecting a witness (Johnny Ross) for a politician (Mr. Chalmers). After Ross dies under Bullitt’s protection, he’s convinced that there’s more to Ross than he was told. It’s the classic, “man against the authority” story which was extremely common in this time period.
The story starts out rather simply by introducing each of the main characters in the story. In the first eleven minutes, they introduce Ross, Bullitt, Delgetti, and Mr. Chalmers. When Mr. Chalmers, the main antagonist, is introduced, so is the call to adventure. Bullitt is put in charge of protecting Ross from the Mafia, one of the antagonists.
After Ross gets shot, Bullitt doesn’t trust Chalmers anymore, which he’s right to do. Every interaction after that is him either dismissing Chalmers, or just simply telling him he doesn’t like him. Chalmers is the second antagonist of the film.
Chalmers only has one real goal in this story: to keep his surprise witness alive. When that goal is slips away from him, he wants Bullitt to suffer the consequences. He does whatever he can to get Bullitt off his case and suspended. He tries to bribe his chief, gives him a habeas corpus and threatens him.
The story after that just kind of flows, with no real order and communication as to what he’s doing or why he’s doing it. There’s a whole scene where he gets the cabbi that took Ross around at the beginning and starts mimicking his actions as to try to find out what he was doing. Yet, it’s hard to understand what he’s doing the first time I watched it.
Fast & Furious has nothing on this car chase!
While Bullitt is investigating Chalmers and trying to find out who really killed Ross, he notices a Black Dodge Charger trailing him. This is the car chase that really set the standard for all modern car chases. Bullitt whips around the hills of San Francisco in his Highland Green 1968 Ford Mustang Fastback, hitting every turn perfectly. This 10 minute car chase is one of the biggest highlights of the film, and the reason why it became so popular.
After the car chase, I really enjoyed the ending scene in the airport. It was a good chase scene that proved Bullitt could actually use his gun, something you would expect from him. They’re running around the runway and through the terminals of SFO as Pan American planes are taking off and landing. It’s beautifully executed and a great end to the movie.
There were some very interesting shots that stood out. In the beginning, it shows an establishing shot of the city, then slowly zooms in on a cab turning left onto California St. until it’s tight on the cab. The other was when Bullitt arrives at the car wash and it’s a head on shot of him, only it’s through the back window of a car as it’s going through a wash. Water runs down the window and it pulls out to reveal its the taxi that Ross took in the beginning of the film.
I think one of the biggest flaws in this movie is the editing. It would keep cutting between two different sub stories when it felt like the other wasn’t really finished. This made it a lot harder to follow along.
Also, when they find out that Ross is actually still alive and the mafia killed some other guy who they thought was Ross, it was really confusing. Bullitt says, “you sent us to protect the wrong guy.” That would never happen. If protecting this guy was that important, which it was, then you wouldn’t have the wrong guy. That’s where I felt the story fell through. I think the writers just got lazy.
The romance in this film is also… unnecessary. It’s nice that Bullitt has a girlfriend, but it seems like they want her to play this “partner in crime” character, and she just doesn’t do that. Instead, she’s there for the sex and to question their relationship when she sees that he’s not disturbed by seeing a gory, dead body just minutes before. Personally, I would’ve liked to see less of her, or portray her for what she actually is.
Despite my gripes, I really enjoyed the film. The cinematography was pretty spot on, the acting was superb and it was super interesting to see San Francisco before the earthquake. I recommend you watch it, if not just for the chase scenes.
