Starring as Eddie Ryan, the real-life inspiration for The French Connection, Robert Duvall gets to really dig into his part. One of my favorite actors, Duvall has always been a criminally underrated actor to me. He wasn't a crazy, over the top method actor like Dustin Hoffman, but he was certainly capable of pulling off roles that required some dark, very bleak background. And coming just a year since the monumental success of The Godfather where he played Tom Hagen, Duvall was riding high in 1973.
Duvall's performance can't help but remind of Gene Hackman's Academy Award winning performance in The French Connection. As Ryan, he's been warped by what he's seen on the streets a vice cop. Ryan is racist, completely intolerant of Hispanics especially, and isn't afraid to bend the rules if it will help close a case or put a crook behind bars. He's a tough cop who's capable of quick outbursts of violence, but it's these feelings that stop him from getting close to anyone, even to Maureen (Verna Bloom), a waitress he dates who has a similar background. Her past isn't perfect, but she just wants to be happy.
As far as Badge 373's plot, there's nothing you haven't seen before in other police procedural movies and shows. Ryan is suspended when an investigation is started as to whether he killed a suspect, a Puerto Rican gangster, who fell off a roof during an interrogation. During his suspension, he takes a job as a bartender where he meets Maureen. One night, his old partner, Gigi Caputo, comes in and catches up with him, but the next morning Eddie gets a call. Gigi's dead, his throat cut from ear to ear. So starts a vengeance trail as Ryan, without badge or gun, investigates what his possibly dirty partner was into.
Politically correct this movie is not, but that's what makes the movies from the 70s so good. No one was interested in appealing to people's sensitive sides. Stories were told, and if you were insulted, tough luck. The bad guys here are Puerto Ricans looking to free their country with a bloody revolution. Ryan begins to find out Gigi was following a huge shipment of machine guns meant to start the fighting. The always slimy Henry Darrow stars as Sweet William, the Hispanic guns dealer Ryan's come across in the past. I have yet to see Darrow in a movie or TV show where he wasn't the villain, and he doesn't disappoint here as Duvall's adversary. Also in the cast is the real Eddie Egan as Lt. Scanlon, Ryan's superior who wants to help the veteran cop out even at a hefty cost.
As Ryan investigates his partner's death, the story drags at points, but it's never boring. Instead of a car vs. L-train chase, we get Duvall taking over a bus and trying to escape from a mob of Puerto Rican gangsters in a cool chase scene through New York. The violence is quick and sometimes shocking with squibs exploding left and right. The language is the same way with plenty of good old cussing and enough ethnic slurs to make just about anybody wince. But that's the whole feel of the movie, it's a story of a cop looking for revenge that goes for realism instead of big, extravagant action.
Duvall is the reason to watch Badge 373. Watching him go from quiet scenes with Bloom to rage-filled outbursts against gangsters is a treat, just like it was watching Hackman, Eastwood and McQueen do it in their movies. There's nothing groundbreaking here, but it's worth a watch, especially if you're a fan of gritty 1970s cop thrillers.
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