FREEBIE AND THE BEAN (1974)

Making eye contact with a naked man in a bubble bath, touching random men as they urinate in a bowling alley restroom, playing grab ass with your buddy in a children’s playground. These are all fun weekend activities, but it’s also a small snippet of what police detectives James Caan and Alan Arkin are up to when they are assigned to protect a high-ranking criminal from unknown assassins. You’d think that squirreling the target away in a secluded location would be a wiser course of action, but no, these two psychopaths go on a no holds barred rampage all across San Francisco like they’re in the fucking Purge!

Cold-blooded murder, sexual assault, driving a car at high speed through a marching band in a parade, assaulting people left and right, driving their car into an occupied apartment, multiple counts of theft, dozens of vehicles damaged or destroyed, looking at pornographic magazines around children, firing guns in public, jumping a moving train with a car, assaulting a man in order to steal his motorcycle, having a car illegally towed, no seat belts ever, assaulting a drunk guy with a metal pipe, murdering a guy in a dentist office, randomly accusing your wife of cheating instead of simply having a conversation with her…I could brush all of this bad behavior aside in the name of (poorly written and dated) comedy, but the racial and gay slurs were just too goddamn much. Life is short, and I don’t have time to waste on that weak-minded bullshit.

Homophobic and racist behavior aside, FREEBIE AND THE BEAN isn’t funny, entertaining or worth watching. Yet somehow it ended up being one of the bigger box office hits of 1974, so what the fuck do I know. I’m glad I watched it, just for the learning experience, but I’ll never watch this stinker again. Skip it.