SYNOPSICS
The Choirboys (1977) is a English,Vietnamese,Spanish movie. Robert Aldrich has directed this movie. Charles Durning,Louis Gossett Jr.,Perry King,Clyde Kusatsu are the starring of this movie. It was released in 1977. The Choirboys (1977) is considered one of the best Comedy,Crime,Drama movie in India and around the world.
A disparate group of Metro Los Angeles police officers - the rank and file - bond over their commonality of being brothers in blue despite their differences. The other thing they all seem to need is a venue to blow off some steam together, what they collectively call "choir practice": after hours piss ups, usually in public, where they again can relieve the pressures of the work day. Despite their brotherhood, not all their lives they feel they can share with each other in the overwhelming sense of what it means to be a real man in this environment. A few weeks in their lives and a few choir practices later are shown, when three of the younger officers, Baxter, Lyles and Bloomguard - the latter two who served together in Vietnam - are temporarily assigned to night duty in Vice under the leadership of Sgt. Scuzzi, who they always assumed was the janitor; as young Proust tries to mitigate the negative effects of his unabashedly blowhard, redneck and bigoted partner, Roscoe out on the ...
Same Actors
The Choirboys (1977) Reviews
Pretty close to the real thing...I know
I was a cop with about 10 years on the street when I read Wambaugh's book, and figured the movie would be terrible. I thought Altman and his crew caught both the flavor of the book and of life on the mean streets of LA dead on. Maybe you had to have been there. I was a great Hill Street fan (still am), but it was sanitized for TV, and much less like the real thing because of needing to maintain a plot line. Life ain't like that, and neither was The Choir Boys. Cop humor is hard to fathom for outsiders. Cops are, in fact, a minority group anthropologically, meeting all the same criteria. Life out there doesn't go from A to B to C. It's chaotic. So was the movie, a little. Good job of catching the feeling.
I loved the book and the movie, sorry.
It seems like we're supposed to hate this one but I loved it, I'm sorry but there you go. Maybe it was because it came out at the time when punk had just happened. To me the book & the movie were such a break from the usual stereotypical pro-authority nonsense we were being regularly served up at the time (and sadly we seem to have gotten back to these days). Naturally the book was, by far, the better experience (a genuine 'laugh out loud' read to be highly recommended) but nevertheless I found both hilarious and a long overdue reality check on the forelock tugging blind belief in benevolent and always virtuous 'authority' (something which applies well outsides of the confines of any Police unit too). I think it's a real pity we seem to have lost that very healthy irreverence & scepticism and are today saddled with way too much haughty hard-faced tedium and an expectation that we blindly trust authority figures.
To each his own
Once again I am forced to defend a decent movie. I saw this movie when it came out, I was in college. I thought it was very funny and was a blend of comedy and drama that was above most of the other fair at that time. I saw it again recently and while it had perhaps lost a little of its luster I thought it was still pretty funny. Of course, if you don't like anyone saying politically incorrect things (even if that person is presented as a total moron) then you might be too "delicate" to appreciate the humor. Tim McIntyre was hilarious as Roscoe Rules and there was a young Randy Quaid, and James Woods as well. Charles Durning is effective in this film and far from hating the ending, I thought it was not "Upbeat" but rather merely stopped the movie from being a total downer.
Two movies in one.
"The Choirboys" is essentially made of two different movies: the first half (and more) is a plotless, "Police Academy" -type (even if it was made several years earlier) comedy, and a fairly consistently UNfunny one, too. It's not that the gags aim mostly at a juvenile level (which they do); it's that they are simply not funny 90% of the time. In its second hour, the movie takes a sharp left turn toward drama, and surprisingly this part works better. But beware! There is a truly immoral finale that will annoy you if you take it seriously. (**)
EXCELLENT Example of 1970's Black Comedies!!!! Awesome Cast!!
The Choirboys is flat-out one of my all-time favorite movies!!! I have read the list of reviews here, and the positive ones are more insightful than most of the negative reviews, which consist mainly of "moronic," "insulting," "an outrage," ... blah, blah, blah (or more precisely "wah, wah, wah"). Don't listen to them -- this is an EXCELLENT movie. Mind you, it won't win any academy awards, but the cast is a who's who of Hollywood superstars. But, of course, they weren't stars when this movie was made -- they were really just breaking into the business, for the most part. Heck, James Woods alone is worth the price of admission!! And do keep in mind that this movie was made 30 years ago -- the cinematography and over-all feel is kind of dark, although there are some hilarious scenes! And I do not apologize for any part of this movie -- of all "police comedies" it is by far the most "real," in that I can imagine very easily a department EXACTLY like the one depicted. (In fact, I MISS the days when cops were REAL PEOPLE -- and not a bunch of ex-Marine Drill Instructors akin to Robocops (no offense to The Marines -- but you know what I mean, don't you?). Choir Practice, in the movie, is, of course, the weekly drinking fest where the boys (and girls) blow off steam. And typical of 70's movies, there is more than one story going on at the same time -- and a good deal of time is spent developing the array of characters, all with stories of their own. I like this movie -- and if you like Dirty Harry and think he is AWESOME for KICKING ASS, if you think this world has gotten WAY TO PC for comfort, if you like to party and make no excuses for it -- then you will like this movie, too!