Sharky’s Machine (1981) has a great opening sequence of Burt Reynolds looking gruff, striding through fog on a train track to the sounds of Randy Crawford’s ‘Street Life’ (later used on the soundtrack to Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown). Directed by Reynolds himself, this is adapted from a William Diehl novel and works as a 1980s neo-noir with references to the classic film noir Laura and Hitchcock’s Rear Window. Reynolds is Sharky, a classic super-cop in the Dirty Harry mould who, after the opening shoot-out from a drug bust gone wrong, is busted down into the depths of Vice Squad. While arresting sex workers and ensuring political events with city big wigs are kept nice and orderly, Sharky gets wind of a bigger operation going on involving corrupt politicians and leads a surveillance job on the apartment of Dominoe (Rachel Ward, giving a cliche role lots of charisma and grace), one of the escorts. While on duty as a round the clock peeping tom, Sharky falls in love with Dominoe, an aspiring dancer, but also has to tangle with the vicious presence of an assassin (Henry Silva, so good at being intense; it’s a surprise he doesn’t have any real character scenes in the film). A little long at two hours, Sharky’s Machine serves you up a bit of everything: from Burt cracking wise and hanging out the guys in his outfit that form his “Machine” including great character actors like Bernie Casey, Richard Libertini, Brian Keith, Charles Durning; to Burt being a romantic lead, besotted with the lovely Dominoe, singing ‘My Funny Valentine’ to himself, and of course, to Burt in tough guy action mode including a climactic shootout at the top of a skyscraper. Rented it on iTunes. From what I’ve seen, definitely one of Burt’s strongest action films (after White Lightning). Depending on if you’re a fan of Burt Reynolds and/or 1980s crime sleaze, recommended.
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