Drab, sexist, and unfocused, this would-be
comedy about pool hustlers features James Coburn in his familiar charming-rogue
groove, complete with the glorious salt-and-pepper perm that he sported for
many years. (In fact, two separate scenes showcase Coburn's hair-care regimen,
because he works a flat iron in one vignette and tucks his precious coiffure
beneath a shower cap in another.) The storyline is a colorless mixture of
gambling-flick clichés, and the characterizations are as one-dimensional as the
narrative. Nonetheless, Coburn does what he can to infuse the movie with
energy, and the plot skips along from one situation to the next at a fairly
rapid pace. So while it would be a stretch to call The Baltimore Bullet interesting, the picture is basically
watchable, and pool fans will enjoy cameos by real-life professional players as
well as scenes featuring wild trick shots, some of which Coburn performs
on-camera. There’s also a bizarre supporting performance by onetime
blaxploitation luminary Calvin Lockhart, who sports a giant white Afro and a
ladies’ dressing robe to play a crook named “Snow White.”
When the story
begins, veteran hustler Nick Casey (Coburn), whose nickname is “The Baltimore
Bullet,” ekes out a living alongside his young partner, Billie Joe Robbins
(Bruce Boxleitner), a headstrong stud with a bad habit of losing all his money
in poker games. The men are thoroughly sleazy, using an old clipping of their
sole appearance in Sports Illustrated
to score with bimbos. (Typically misogynistic moment: Billie Joe loses a bet by
groping a waitress’ massive breasts and confirming they’re real instead of
silicone.) Eventually, word reaches Nick that an old nemesis, The Deacon (Omar
Sharif), has been released from prison, so Nick and Billie Joe head to New
Orleans, where they plan to enter a pool contest in order to win enough money
for a high-stakes rematch with The Deacon. Along the way to New Orleans, the
hustlers befriend singer-songwriter Carolina Red (Ronnee Blakeley, a long way
from Robert Altman’s Nashville) and
get into a hassle with the aforementioned Snow White, occasioning a chase scene
through an amusement-park funhouse.
Lighthearted but witless, the script by
John Brascia and Robert Vincent O'Neill strives for madcap excitement but
instead delivers disassociated moments that lack both sparkle and substance.
It's impossible to care what happens to the self-serving characters, and the
movie ventures off track so many times that one can't even ride the momentum of
the central plot all the way to the finish. Worse, incoherence rears its head
with considerable frequency, adding muddiness to the lengthy list of the
movie's shortcomings.
The
Baltimore Bullet: FUNKY
