Art Vandelay This isn't funny or dramatic. Just a badly acted cartoon showing incompetent cops pulling stunts that would get them killed in real life. Liebman and Selby are so desperate, white and obvious, it's impossible to believe how any street-wise hustler in 70s NYC couldn't smell the bacon from a while away. Harold Ramis pretending to be a cop on SCTV's Undercover Mountie was more realistic. But they hit upon a plan to trample the civil rights of the neighbourhood ne'er-do-wells as a way to shake down the street dealers and work their way up to the local heroin dealer. I wouldn't be surprised if the DEA use this as a training film. For all the criticism Dirty Harry received as a fascist film, when it was really more like cop fantasia - ie. license to blow away the bad guys - this movie is likely closer to the subversive truth about how the po-po will stop at nothing to make their bust and go home safe. As an added bonus, Liebman grins his way through every scene. What the hell was so amusing. I'd be shocked if this movie got booked outside NYC. It has no appeal other than ''hey, look, they filmed that scene in front of my drug-infested tenement house!''

edwagreen Ron Leibman was born for the part of Officer David Greenberg in this excellent film. Gung-ho about being a New York City police officer, he jumps into the job with his friend and partner to a degree that we have rarely seen by anyone entering any field of work.The film is such a good one because it shows a police force mired in corruption. You reach the point that you don't know which person to trust.The two are punished for being diligent and aggressive by being assigned to a high crime area of Brooklyn. They go beyond the call of duty to take out drug dealers, constantly putting their lives on the line to benefit everyone else only to be charged with corruption. The higher-ups just don't know what to make or how to deal with these guys.

Robert J. Maxwell By the late 1960s urban crime was rampant. In 1969, in Harlem, I had a pistol shoved in my face by two twelve-year-old kids who demanded my money, as if I had any. Nobody in Hollywood knew exactly how to deal with it. "Dirty Harry" in 1971 finally broke the ice, if only by addressing the problem in a paradisiacal setting and by turning the perp into a whining serial killer. "Serpico" was dirtier than Harry and dealt with corruption in the police hierarchy. That was 1972. This is 1974 and Ron Liebman and David Selby are two cops who are impatient with the bureaucratic rules, just as Dirty Harry was, and who face racial problems, which neither Harry nor Serpico did.In its essence, it's a more textured film. It's one thing to fight a serial killer or against determined police corruption. The good guy is good and the bad guys are bad. It's another to fight bureaucratic inertia. The enemy is established but nebulous. How do you begin? Liebman and Selby are cocky young rebels even when they are rookies in the NYPD and on probation. They bust drug dealers when they're off duty, and although the number of their collars grows, so does the paperwork, both for them and for the others in their precinct. Nobody likes a rate buster. They make everyone else look slow and lazy.The mad sociologist Max Weber described the transfer of labor from small businesses like farming and shoe making to large bureaucratic organizations like Standard Oil at the turn of the century. Bureaucracies worked very well because it was, ideally, a meritocracy and the lines of authority were strictly drawn. But forty years later, another sociologist, Robert K. Merton, observed that there was a major flaw in bureaucracies. If you stick your neck out by taking risks, you get your head chopped off.If you want promotions, smooth sailing, and a comfortable retirement, you keep your head down and do no more than what the formal rules require. You lose sight of the bureaucracy's goals and concentrate instead on doing what everyone else does -- avoiding responsibility in case something goes wrong. There is a character in "The Good Soldier Schweik" who follows army rules to the letter and by doing so almost brings the war to a complete halt. Merton called it bureaucratic ritualism but we can call it covering your arse or CYA.No ritualist becomes a rate buster. It's bad news for the bureaucracy and what's bad news for the institution soon becomes bad news for the rate buster. The senior cops assign Liebman and Selby to menial tasks like directing traffic and typing office memos.However, they prevail in the face of precinct conspiracies to degrade them and in the end they get a promotion with an ironic footnote attached.I don't mean to ramble on about bureaucracies but although they sound dull -- pathological even -- they're a fascinating subject because all of us have to deal with them in one way or another. Liebman and Selby don't break any of the rules but they demonstrate how informal customs come to be more important than the rules themselves. They may be super cops but others in their department report them to internal affairs for wearing sneakers instead of regulation shoes while chasing crooks.As for the movie itself, Serpico's story had obviously been shaped to add commercial appeal, but this one appears mostly made up. I believe the two super cops ran into problems with their colleagues. I don't believe they hid themselves in an empty cardboard box, began singing a Pepsi-Cola commercial, and then leaped out, guns drawn, and cornered a gang of drug dealers.This is a precursor to the kinds of action movies we commonly see today, in which, say, Arnold Schwarzenegger breaks somebody's neck while making a wisecrack. Of course, it has its serious moments and some scenes are packed with dramatic tension. But the overall emotional tonus is light-hearted.Liebman is great. He's always great, and always Jewish in the most appealing way. It's his movie. Selby is more of a sidekick than a partner. He has an odd face too, something like an owl's, with large eyes, an oversized beak, and a tiny mouth beneath.I enjoyed it, wisecracks and all, and I salute it for addressing a problem that is so shadowy that many of us can't even define it.

wes-connors Before receiving an award for outstanding police work, New York City patrolmen David "Dave" Greenberg and Robert "Bob" Hantz are seen interviewed. Affectionately nicknamed, "Batman and Robin," this is their true story. After the credits, we flashback to the dynamic duo beginning at the Police Academy, with actors Ron Leibman (as Greenberg) and David Selby (as Hantz) assuming the roles. At first, Mr. Leibman and Mr. Selby are not assigned very hazardous duties. They start to go off on their own, wanting to crack down on drug dealers... Rogue techniques get the pair in trouble with the law, but we know from the opening how this story ends. This gives "The Super Cops" less tension than ideal – and, consequently, there isn't an abundance of excitement in the narrative. Leibman and Selby have a good rapport and director Gordon Parks works well in the gritty setting, with photographer Dick Kratina. Shot in a steeply sleazy walk-up hotel, the first meeting with sexy Sheila Frazier (as Sara) is a highlight.***** The Super Cops (3/20/74) Gordon Parks ~ Ron Leibman, David Selby, Sheila Frazier, Pat Hingle