McQ

I briefly mentioned the John Wayne movie McQ a couple of times in the past, mostly to talk about the interesting (mis)casting of Wayne in the title role. I had never done a full-length review of the movie here, however, mostly because when I tried recording it some years back, I lost the DirecTV signal for several minutes that just happened to coincide with the end of the movie. TCM ran McQ again a few months back, so I made certain to record it in order to be able to watch it and finally do a review of it here.

As I mentioned in the opening paragraph, John Wayne plays McQ, which is really short for a full name of Lon McHugh, hence the nickname. But we don't see him for several minutes. The film starts off with a sequence where a man drives into Seattle in the pre-dawn hours and shoots dead two police officers. Then a man in a police uniform has a rendezvous with another car, delivering a satchel of some sort. For his troubles this other man gets shot as well.

It's here that McQ shows up, as the third guy was Sgt. Boyle, who was McQ's partner on the force as well as a fairly close friend. McQ is another in the long line of unorthodox police officers, living on a boat like Quincy, M.E. and engaging in a lot more violence than police in those days were purported to have used. Now, in some ways this is understandable such as when we see a hitman show up to the marina trying to kill McQ, who has to fight back, shooting in self-defense. But other times, it's the sort of violence that really makes life difficult for his boss, Capt. Kosterman (Eddie Albert).

Sgt. Boyle eventually dies, leaving behind a widow Lois (Diana Muldaur), and it's up to McQ to try to console her. That, and he has to investigate since he wants justice for his deceased partner. It seems fairly clear to him that a man called Santiago (Al Lettieri) is using his shipping business as a front to bring drugs into Seattle, and McQ is determined to bring down Santiago. Unfortunately, he's too zealous, comming violence against Santiago that he shouldn't have, forcing McQ to either resign or face desk duty.

McQ picks the former so that he can go work with an old colleague who's now a private investigator, and as he investigates he gets the sinking feeling that perhaps the police are more involved than just Sgt. Boyle possibly being a dirty cop. It also goes without saying that as McQ gets closer to the truth, he finds his life is in more and more danger. He is of course right that Santiago is involved, but it's not just the two men; that leads to the final shootout on a beach.

A lot of people, not just me, comment on the casting of John Wayne here, and I think the main reason for it is how dark the movie is. Despite the fact that there was a fair amount of violence in the westerns Wayne made in the final years of his career, most of those westerns have a somewhat lighter tone. McQ, however, is unrelentingly dark and perhaps even more violent than the westerns. Wayne would go on to make a second contemporary cop movie after this one, Brannigan, and that one despite its violence has the lighter tone that fits Wayne perfectly.

This isn't to say that McQ is a bad movie by any means. While some of the other cop movies of the 1970s are better, including I think Brannigan, Wayne does a fine job here while Al Lettieri makes a great villain again. Lettieri died much too young. The location shooting is nice, and there are some good supporting performances too.

McQ is a movie that should be seen for more reasons than just the seemingly curious casting of John Wayne as a latter-day cop. It's pretty good in its own right.