{"id":3698,"date":"2024-08-28T21:28:48","date_gmt":"2024-08-28T21:28:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=3698"},"modified":"2024-10-14T00:25:29","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T04:25:29","slug":"number-one-with-a-bullet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/08\/28\/number-one-with-a-bullet\/","title":{"rendered":"Number One with a Bullet"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Number One with a Bullet <\/strong>(1987)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cannon\/Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 101 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, violence, drugs)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Jack Smight\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Gail Morgan Hickman, Andrew Kurtzman, Rob Riley and James Belushi\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Alf Clausen\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Alex Phillips Jr.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: February 27, 1987 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Robert Carradine, Billy Dee Williams, Valerie Bertinelli, Peter Graves, Doris Roberts, Bobby Di Cicco, Ray Giradin, Barry Sattels, Mykel T. Williamson, Jonathan Gries, Richard Minchenberg, LaGena Hart, Alex Rebar.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $410,952 (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0Let\u2019s take a little trip back in time to early \u201987 when two similar cop movies opened within a week of each other. The one you\u2019re most likely familiar with is the first Lethal Weapon movie starring Mel Gibson and Danny Glover. It\u2019s a classic of the genre. It changed the face of buddy cop movies forever. The one you probably don\u2019t remember is the one that opened the week before, Number One with a Bullet<\/strong> starring Robert Carradine and Billy Dee Williams. It isn\u2019t a classic. It didn\u2019t even make a ripple at the box office. While the two movies aren\u2019t exactly the same, they\u2019re similar enough to make one wonder if the writers of Number One with a Bullet<\/strong> got a peek at the screenplay for LW before going to work on theirs. It\u2019s highly doubtful, but one never knows for sure.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Detective Nick Barzak (Carradine, Revenge of the Nerds) is a cop on the edge. For the past four years, he\u2019s been after DeCosta (Sattels, Dawn of the Mummy), a respected businessman he suspects of being a major drug supplier. Despite endless stakeouts and hours of investigation, he\u2019s never been able to prove a thing. Everybody, even his partner and best friend Frank Hazeltine (Williams, Nighthawks), thinks he\u2019s crazy. On the streets, he\u2019s known as \u201cBerserk\u201d. When he\u2019s not trying to nail DeCosta, he\u2019s wooing his ex-wife Teresa (Bertinelli, One Day at a Time). He still loves her; she just wants to get on with her life.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Hazeltine is a cool, smooth type who plays trumpet at a jazz club during his off-duty hours. Despite his misgivings about his partner\u2019s sanity, he still goes along with him on his unauthorized stakeouts outside DeCosta’s mansion. Their lieutenant, Kaminski (Girardin, Hollywood Man), spends a lot of time saving their asses from Captain Ferris (Graves, Mission: Impossible) who doesn\u2019t approve of their methods. Barzak and Hazeltine continually defy his orders to leave DeCosta alone which ultimately leads to them being ordered to take a mandatory two-week vacation. Naturally, it doesn\u2019t stop them from trying to get their man.<\/p>\n

\u00a0If any of this sounds familiar, it’s because it is. Number One with a Bullet<\/strong>\u00a0is just like a lot of the cop actioners that came before it and after it. Let\u2019s circle back to Lethal Weapon, shall we? Check out the similarities. A crazy white cop teamed up with a more stable black cop. They joke around with each other and get into situations that typically involve property destruction and loss of life. They’re trying to take down a major drug ring. It turns into a life-threatening situation involving loved ones. HOWEVER, I see one major difference. Follow me on this. Gibson\u2019s character in Lethal Weapon, a suicidal Vietnam vet grieving for his late wife, is completely unhinged and extremely dangerous. I never got that sense from Carradine\u2019s character. He\u2019s angry (sort of), reckless, insubordinate and obsessed with nailing DeCosta, but doesn\u2019t come off as mentally unstable.<\/p>\n

\u00a0To the movie\u2019s credit, the two leads have decent chemistry. Carradine and Williams play off nicely against each other with Barzak playing dumb jokes every time his partner chats up a lady at the jazz club. I like both actors, but I\u2019ve always been especially fond of Williams. He is the absolute embodiment of cool. Bertinelli, in a rare feature film performance, does okay as the ex-wife who insists she\u2019s over her ex-husband but really isn\u2019t. She isn\u2019t given a lot to do. She has a few heated exchanges with Carradine before doing an emotional 180. This, of course, means her life will put in danger at some point. It\u2019s in the genre manual; look it up. Roberts (Christmas Vacation) adds comic relief as Barzak\u2019s mother who nags him about not calling her more often…. on his answering machine.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Directed by Jack Smight (Airport 1975), Number One with a Bullet<\/strong> follows the buddy cop formula to a tee right down to the guys\u2019 case being hampered by a mole in the department. It doesn\u2019t take a Criswell to accurately guess who the mole is. It kind of plays like the pilot episode of a cop show, but that’s not a liability in my eyes. It actually affirms its dedication to form.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Number One with a Bullet<\/strong> is a B-movie through and through with its routine plot, high predictability factor and stock characters. It\u2019s a collection of clich\u00e9s, but it never feels tired or boring. It has some good action scenes like the mid-air attack by hitmen in a helicopter as the guys attempt to bring home a potential witness. There\u2019s also a neat chase involving an 18-wheeler truck. Despite how it sounds, the action never gets too out of hand. It benefits greatly from its talented cast and sure-handed direction by Smight. It bears mentioning that one of the four writers is James Belushi. Yes, that<\/em> James Belushi, the one from About Last Night, The Principal and Red Heat.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Overall, Number One with a Bullet<\/strong> is a good flick. It\u2019s a harmless little actioner from Cannon, the kind most filmmakers can make in their sleep. It\u2019s entertaining and occasionally funny. So it\u2019s not perfect. It\u2019s still more watchable than most of today\u2019s bombastic, CGI-heavy action spectacles. It\u2019s a good choice for a dull weeknight.\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Number One with a Bullet (1987)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cannon\/Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 101 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, violence, drugs)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Jack Smight\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Gail Morgan Hickman, Andrew Kurtzman, Rob Riley and James Belushi\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Alf Clausen\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Alex Phillips Jr.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: February 27, 1987 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Robert Carradine, Billy Dee Williams, Valerie Bertinelli, Peter Graves, Doris Roberts, Bobby […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5160,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-action-adventure","category-b-movies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Number-One-with-a-Bullet-PI.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3698"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5162,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3698\/revisions\/5162"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}