I was happy I'd had a particularly busy week, and decided to "veg-out" for a while early Friday afternoon. As a result, noticed this being run on AMC at a time I normally wouldn't have watched.

For some reason, this is one of the Duke's film which I'd missed earlier, and had never taped or rented. (It also reminded me of how infrequently one saw him on-screen in contemporary, civilian attire.)

One of his later films, not many years before his illness and death, he seemed surprisingly spry and energetic at age 67. And the story was interesting (from the start to the end) and gripping, and the remaining actors well-cast and excellent.

With John Wayne now gone for more than 30 years, it's particularly nostalgic and enjoyable to watch one of his movies you haven't seen before.

This may not quite be a 10* flick, if one were rating in a contemporary fashion. But for the above reasons, I enjoyed it at this level today.

If you don't particularly like John Wayne, then I doubt if this film will change your opinion. But, if you do like his films and want to watch some mindless action, it's not a bad bet at all--though the film is awfully derivative. That's because only a short time before this, the Dirty Harry films debuted and were VERY successful. John Wayne must have been really ticked, as he was first offered the part as Inspector Callahan ("Dirty Harry"). McQ is his attempt to cash in on the genre, though the results were definitely very mixed.

First, let's talk about the bad. The overall tone of the film is pretty dark and depressing. A plot involving stolen drugs and dirty cops was a far cry from the usual John Wayne fare. Plus I was pretty shocked when this newer and "hipper" Wayne gave drugs to Colleen Dewhurst to elicit her assistance AND THEN he slept with her! This just seemed rather gross. Occasionally, the Duke's reasoning abilities seemed a bit "super-human"--such as how did he know what he knew when the film was about to end??!! Also, unlike Dirty Harry and Wayne's next film (BRANNIGAN),there are no great lines from the film such as "you feelin' lucky, punk". Also, the story itself is just okay.

As for the good, there are some wonderful action scenes--ones that a 60-something Wayne couldn't have really done if his life had depended on it! And the final confrontation was really exciting and about what you'd hope for in the film.

By the way, while I only see this as a slightly better than average time-passer, his next film, BRANNIGAN, is a much better film. While not exactly a sequel, he plays a very similar role but the writing, locale and acting is just a whole lot better--and aside from THE SHOOTIST, is probably the best film of the final decade of Wayne's career.

I've always felt that John Wayne did his two police films McQ and Brannigan for a combination of reasons. Some of his last westerns before these like The Train Robbers and Cahill were really not up to standard and didn't get the reception at the box office Wayne films could usually expect. I also think those rugged western locations were becoming a problem healthwise. And of course Wayne was bowing to the public's new taste in heroes.

In McQ Wayne is investigating the death of his partner, the way Humphrey Bogart investigated the shooting death of Jerome Cowan in the Maltese Falcon. He has to go private to do it, he actually resigns from the Seattle PD and gets a private license, courtesy of a friend, David Huddleston. The investigation leads him to some surprising and not welcome conclusions.

John Wayne is always the great symbol of law and order and at first glance you would think this might not be a role for him, investigating crooked cops. But when you think about it in films like Tall in the Saddle and Rio Lobo he dealt with crooked sheriffs in the usual Wayne manner. In fact the whole point of Rio Lobo is Wayne putting his whole life on hold to find a couple of guys who betrayed him and their country during the Civil War. So McQ is definitely in line with both of those films.

In the supporting cast my favorite is Al Lettieri the drug kingpin of Seattle. Lettieri's death a few years after this film was a great loss to cinema. During the first half of the Seventies, ever since playing Virgil Sollozzo in The Godfather, Lettieri created some really outstanding villains and Manny Santiago here is one of them.

The ending will surprise you and its more Maltese Falcon than you would think.