just watched this again recently. amazing how time changes your perspective. this was one of my favorite movies in the 80s. Watching it 30 years later you realize just how much coke the writers of this movie must have been on. The frenetic style, the music (Wang Chung? really...LOL) I guess that's just how movies seemed to be made back then when it came to crime stuff. And it wasn't like it was Tony Scott directed it. It was William Friedkin who also did the Exorcist.

Interesting. And yeah, this would have blown my mind in the 80s. And yea I've done the same thing, I've watched movies I used to love in the 80s now and they are horrible. It is partly because I was a kid then, and partly because it was just a different time. Still some I really like though.

It's a typical (very good) 80s movie: fast-paced, frenetic, shoot-outs and chases. Seen today it may seem trite but it remains a good movie

@microscope said:

I like the story, it was like an episode of The Wire, but it was like 4 times longer than I wished. I kept getting bored. It is also very cliche-y which is excusable for being 1980s, but still, that is no consolation to me.

Meh... Friedkin's movie bored me during the eighties. And maybe you've got the point, maybe you don't... what's acceptable today, may become a cliche tomorrow.

Rest in peace, William Friedkin.