McQ (1974)

It seems the idea here was to have John Wayne be a Dirty Harry type character in Seattle instead of San Francisco. From the lack of sequels you can guess at how the results turned out.

Here McQ is a kind of super-cop who gets ears deep in a drug stealing/smuggling deal and the force isn’t approving of his no bullshit style of police work. He slaps and kicks hippies, is out for revenge for his slain partner, kinda wants to bone his partners widow, kills on sight, drives fast, trades “skag” for information, gets kicked off the force and goes to work for a detective agency, and on and on. 1970’s cop cliches abound. Muscle car, highballs of scotch, snitching pimps, the works.

It is way, way too long. But it is shot in Seattle, so I was easily distracted by sightseeing. You feel bad for John Wayne when he has to run, thats a drawback for an action film. And he’s clearly drunk in many scenes. Seriously, dude was 67 years old when this shit came out and only a few years off from dying of cancer. I mean, fuck.

John Wayne always make me think of this: