Hickey And Boggs

Warning to Review Readers
It should be noted that many of the reviews that Amazon has chosen to post on this page are for previous DVD and VHS releases of this film. The reviews are quite correct, those versions are horrible. This one is excellent, as MODs go, and is certainly going to be the best quality version that you are going to find anywhere. So please ignore the low overall rating as it is being dragged down by these erroneous comments.

Detectives Aren't Heroes Anymore.
A few years after their successful run as partners in espionage on television's "I Spy", Robert Culp and Bill Cosby teamed up for "Hickey & Boggs", a cynical 1972 neo-noir that Culp directed. Far from the adventurous, optimistic duo that Culp and Cosby portrayed in "I Spy", Al Hickey (Bill Cosby) and Frank Boggs (Robert Culp) are private investigators with a dearth of clients and abundance of personal problems. They are hired by a Mr. Rice (Lester Fletcher) to locate a woman named Mary Jane Bower and given a short list of her known acquaintances. The first person on the list is found dead, the bodies pile up, the guns get bigger, and the police lose their patience with the detectives' habit of withholding evidence. But Mary Jane (Carmen) seems to be the key to the loot from a big armored car heist, so Hickey and Boggs keep plugging away, with a $25,000 reward at stake and little left to lose.

"Hickey & Boggs" excels in presenting the private investigator as an emasculated...

Terrific film, really bad DVD
You can tell how bad the DVD is of this film; the website for which I am doing this review does not even list this title on DVD anymore. No question, it is a terrible DVD transfer. I am giving this three stars because it's a great film. The screenplay is by none other than Walter Hill and one of the two leads, Robert Culp, directed--as far as I know, his only feature film directorial effort (he did direct a number of TV show episodes, different shows).

This is a tough as nails noir film with Culp and Bill Cosby as two cynical PIs who get mixed up in a money laundering caper to the tune of 400 grand from a prior bank heist. Also involved are a slick crime boss and his henchmen--one of them is played by a very young Michael Moriarty--and, echoing Chandler, an effeminate lawyer, as well as the cops. The main two of that group are Vincent Gardenia, Sgt. Papadakis, and another early appearance, this time by James Woods at Lt. Wyatt.

But the two title characters...

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