When a defecting Chicago Mobster
arrives in San Fransisco ahead of a Senate Sub Committee hearing on Organised
Crime, the SFPD are tasked with providing around the clock protection in his
cheap boarding house. When hitmen burst in, shooting and seriously wounding a
police officer and the mobster turned witness, Lieutenant Frank Bullitt (Steve
McQueen) and Sergeant Dalgetti (Don Gordon) pick up the trail to hunt down the
murders while uncovering a deeper plot. Their progress is hindered by the ambitious
politician Walter Chalmers (Robert Vaughn) who wants the witness back on the
stand and blames Bullitt for the attack.
Bullitt is one of those classic, cool 60s movies which I’ve always
wanted to see but never got around to doing so until now. I was aware of the
famous car chase and that Steve McQueen was meant to have given one of his
trademark edgy, cooler than ice performances but I knew little else. As well as
the above, the film has a lot to offer the viewer from a fantastic score to
impressive cinematography but I was never engaged in the storyline.