Fuzz

Year releasted: 1972

by Nathan Rabin
July 2nd, 2003

Can a team of wisecracking cops stop a deaf man's hearing-impaired reign of terror? Will Burt Reynolds find the hooligans who are setting homeless people on fire? Can Raquel Welch catch a notorious rapist while armed with nothing but nerves of steel and a high tolerance for her peers' sexist antics? Finally, how long will the fuzz tolerate the constant back-sassing of the cackling painters who seem to have taken up permanent residence in their office? Those are just some of the questions posed by 1972's Fuzz, which offers a penetrating look at the tomfoolery lurking behind law enforcement. As the film opens, laconic cop Reynolds is posing as a homeless man to catch the aforementioned hooligans, a plan that predictably backfires when a gang sets him on fire. He survives with his body and toupee intact, but is briefly restricted to a hospital bed while fellow cops Tom Skerritt and James McEachin pursue Yul Brynner, a deaf, fuzz-hating master criminal who doesn't let his disability prevent him from pursuing a lucrative career in extortion and murder. Meanwhile, Welch watches in horror as her boorish male colleagues giggle uncontrollably at a dowdy rape victim describing the "rape artist" who attacked her—a swarthy, tuxedo-clad man in a cape wearing dancing slippers and a bow tie. Reynolds next trades in his faux-hobo garb for a nun's habit, and mans a stakeout alongside fellow cop/nun-impersonator Jack Weston. Weston and Reynolds snag one of Brynner's helpers and subject him to the old good-cop/bad-cop routine, but since they haven't changed costumes, it ends up being more of a good-nun/bad-nun routine. Welch eventually catches the rapist, who turns out to be far less sartorially flamboyant than previously advertised. The office painters are revealed to be criminals, and, in a tidy climax, Weston and Reynolds semi-accidentally stumble upon Brynner and shoot him, just before the young hooligans mistake him for a bum and set him on fire. The wicked firestarters are then busted by the fuzz themselves, while Brynner dies horrifically, capping a series of events sure to strike fear in the hearts of transient-hating arsonists and deaf, cop-hating villains alike.