I like Steve McQueen. He just oozes coolness. He's so cool that he plays what's pretty much the only American in The Great Escape (my favorite movie) which is otherwise a film entirely made by and starring british actors, and he is in it because he is such a cool American actor that by putting him in the movie the film was popular among American audiences. It is because I was such a fan of McQueen in The Great Escape that I had such high hopes for his other well known film, Bullitt. Unfortunately, I have to say that I was let down. While McQueen himself was as cool as he always is, I found the film itself to be otherwise lacking.
Taking place in 1968 San Francisco, Bullitt tells the story of Frank Bullitt (McQueen) a police lieutenant assigned with protecting a key witness, Johnny Ross, brother of Chicago crime kingpin Pete Ross. An ambitious politician named Walter Chalmers is bringing in Johnny Ross to a Senate subcommittee hearing on organized crime in order to improve his political standing. Ross is under police custody because he just stole $2 million from the mob and they're out to get him. While other policemen are on watch, a pair of hitmen break into Ross's hotel room and shoot him. Bullitt wants to investigate the men who shot Ross, but pressure it put on him when Chalmers tries to pin the blame for Ross's murder on him.
