Hickey & Boggs

The first film from a Walter Hill script turns out to be as interesting for the assurance of Culp's direction as for Hill's contribution. Hickey & Boggs pairs television's I Spy team of Cosby and Culp as two down-at-heel private eyes caught in the crossfire of a very messy attempt to fence a suitcase full of banknotes. The laconic and cynical pair inhabit a familiar '70s noir thriller world where if you blink you miss a crucial plot point, and Cosby's relationship with his estranged wife and kid more than once threatens to turn sentimental. But the film scores with set pieces like the complicated shootout in a baseball park (where neither of them manage to hit anything), and many moments of fine throwaway humour. Peckinpah or Siegel couldn't have done it any more crisply.