Freebie and the Bean (1974)

          In addition to being one of the first buddy-cop movies, Freebie and the Bean is so gleefully outrageous that when I revisited the movie at a screening in Hollywood circa 2005, some of the racially provocative gags triggered audible gasps. Whereas most buddy-cop pictures undercut edginess by suggesting heroes are basically decent, Freebie and the Bean achieves a sort of badass integrity by focusing on policemen so dangerously unhinged they shouldn’t be loose on the streets, much less armed with guns and badges.

          Freebie (James Caan) is a racist willing to cause mass destruction while pursuing criminals, and Bean (Alan Arkin) is an uptight Mexican so preoccupied with the possibility of his wife’s infidelity that he suffers volcanic outbursts. These madmen prowl the streets of San Francisco as plainclothes detectives obsessed with nailing nailing local crime boss Red Meyers (Jack Kruschen). Defying authority, destroying public property, and endangering bystanders wherever they go, Freebie and Bean instigate such crazed scenes as a car chase that ends with a sedan zooming off a highway and landing inside a third-floor apartment. (Keep in mind Freebie and the Bean was made in the pre-CGI era, so real people performed the amazing feats; although the blending of actors and stuntmen is clumsy, the physical reality of the wild action ups the energy level.)

          Director Richard Rush, whose gonzo pictures include the drug-culture classic Psych-Out (1968) and the perverse thriller The Stunt Man (1980), orchestrates startlingly offensive verbal confrontations as well as spectacular tableaux of mass demolition. This is total balls-to-the-wall filmmaking, so while Freebie and the Bean is not quality cinema (the story isn’t memorable and nothing feels credible), it’s still highly entertaining. Juicing that watchability is the way both leading actors commit to their performances while generating playfully antagonistic chemistry. Caan is so cocksure and trigger-happy he makes Dirty Harry seem cautious by comparison, while Arkin is so paranoid and volatile he seems ready for an asylum. (Good luck ignoring the fact that Arkin and Valerie Harper, who plays his wife, are absurdly miscast as Mexicans.)

          While the movie’s ultimate legacy is helping to launch the buddy-cop formula that became ubiquitous in the following decade (48 Hrs., Lethal Weapon, etc.), Freebie and the Bean also inspired a short-lived TV adaptation that aired from 1980 to 1981, with Tom Mason playing Freebie and Hector Elizondo playing Bean.

Freebie & the Bean: FUNKY