"Big" John Wintergreen is a short motorcycle cop with dreams of being a big-shot detective, and he thinks that he has his big chance when he smells a rat about a drifter's lonely death. Not suicide, but murder. His pluck earns him a place at a side of detective Harve Poole and they start investigating the case.
Except for Harve, scene stealing monologues about the coming police genocide notwithstanding, is kind of spent old man who knows more about looking and acting like a hardass, take no guff po-lice, than actually being one. Great scene by his barmaid girlfriend attesting to this. Sure it's a monologue we've all heard before, but it sounds so true coming from her, so sad.
It's got such a slick look to it too. The high contrast of the dark uniform and motorcycle jacket, set off by the white helmet and bike, against the pale desert highway, makes the scenes look like poster art, purposely iconic. And let's not forget that last shot leading up to the credits. The tracking shot rolling down the highway, far away from....something (oooh, mystery) and whatever lens they were using had the neat effect of making the highway and sky seem to get larger and larger while the gorgeous buttes of Monument Valley stayed the same size, timeless, unchanging.
Great flick, really.
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