There’s so much location footage of old Times Square New York in Report To The Commissioner (1975), that it IS its own character, a document of a New York from long ago, crowded streets witnessing a spectacular filmed foot chase or extras interacting with method actors playing cops. This movie is like a lost Sidney Lumet film but not actually directed by Sidney Lumet. Based on a novel by James Mills, the opening scenes lay it out for us: a female undercover cop has been killed, Patty (Susan Blakely), shot by another cop nick-named “Chicklet” (Michael Moriarty) at the home of the pusher/gunrunner, Stick (Tony King), that she was seeing/collecting evidence from. The report is headed up by Capt Stitcher (Ed Grover) whose interviews, recordings and research frame the narrated flashbacks. We get different perspectives such as the hard-working undercover cop and the superiors who green-light her latest case. Yet the movie is mostly about Moriarty the young hippie cop being assigned the jaded, street-wise partner, Crunch (Yaphet Kotto), and his journey into being swallowed up by the system. Filled with New York character actors (and former cops – including Sonny Grosso from The French Connection), this is the type of movie with lots of conspiratorial scenes of men in suits smoking cigarettes and having tense conversations in backrooms or side streets. There’s also a young Bob Babalan as a legless homeless person, a young Richard Gere as a pimp, and a young Hector Elizondo as a careerist cop. Moriarty’s method acting might be over the top depending on your mileage, but I’m all for it and he gives a full blown performance, that goes from mumbling naivety to a twitching, sweaty mess. Kotto provides the ballast as his partner and is the cynical symbol of assimilating into the system. Directed by Milton Katselas with a funky score by Elmer Bernstein, there’s a looseness for the most part that sharpens by the second half and leaves behind quite a punch by its last image. Available to rent on iTunes, which I did on the day that Yaphet Kotto passed away. Recommended.
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