The midpoint chase and grocery store shootout sequence is a pièce de résistance of pizzazzy long-take camera movement and staging, but the rest is fundamentally anxious, seedy, and defeated—a buddy picture about a couple of unscrupulous vice cops doing a job that's too dirty even for them. Gould's mustachioed, comic-book-reading undercover has this habit of telling call girls he's sorry right before he pulls out the badge; one is almost inclined to believe him.