Hustle (18) + intro

Following the box-office success of The Longest Yard (1974), director Robert Aldrich and star Burt Reynolds chose a very different path with their next collaboration. Hustle is a dark, Los Angeles set, neo-noir about a police lieutenant who finds himself drawn into a suspicious suicide investigation alongside his girlfriend – an escort whose clients include the local mob.

Accompanying Burt Reynolds, Aldrich gathered a quality cast including European superstar Catherine Deneuve, gnarled veterans Ernest Borgnine, Ben Johnson and Eddie Albert, Aldrich regular Paul Winfield, and, in a memorable blink and you’ll miss it appearance, Freddie Kruger-to-be Robert Englund.

For such a box-office hit, Hustle remains surprisingly underseen. This is a rare chance to experience one of the bleakest neo-noirs of the 1970s on the big screen.