Cinema: Bad Dope

HIT!

Directed by SIDNEY J. FURIE

Screenplay by ALAN R. TRUSTMAN and DAVID M. WOLF

Hit! is set in various locations round the U.S., British Columbia and France, although it is impossible to tell exactly where. To establish each new locale, Director Furie (The Ipcress File, Lady Sings the Blues) takes a closeup of a regional license plate, as if he were a cop keeping tab on the traffic. From Washington, D.C., to Washington State, about the only things that change are the colors and the numbers on the licenses. Hit! tries very hard to be a tough action picture, but it is just a little too addled—maybe from all that commuting.

Billy Dee Williams appears as a Government agent whose 15-year-old daughter has O.D.’d on bad dope. He swears vengeance on a Marseille-based smuggling ring and spends a great portion of the movie recruiting and training a sort of Mission: Impossible task force to give him a hand. Hit! is vehemently anti-dope, condoning the pathology of its hero and his commando blitzkriegs on the dope dealers with the self-righteous pragmatism common to pulp fiction. Anyone who can see beyond this, or below it, will catch a smooth performance by Williams and a funny, skittish performance by Richard Pryor, as one of Williams’ recruits. Pryor’s humor pierces through his characterization to mock the whole movie with energy and finesse.

·J.C.