The Choirboys
With Charles Durning, Louis Gossett, Jr., Perry King.
US, 1977, 35mm, color, 119 min.
Print source: Universal
Widely considered an artistic failure, The Choirboys is admittedly not a film that withstands narrative scrutiny or moral policing. Indeed, it is one of the most repellent films ever produced by a major studio, wallowing unabashedly in the roundly objectionable antics of a motley crew of LAPD dirtbags for an exhausting and often seemingly shapeless two hours. It is, however, also a work of awe-inspiring commitment, its cockeyed view of a mini-universe stripped of a moral compass never once flagging in its brutality—a true testament to an evolving 1970s studio system that could on occasion let directorial brio fly by unscathed. Aldrich’s camera here assumes a front-row seat on the hysterical action, rarely recoiling from or eliding the details of the ensemble’s depravity, whether the clumsy cops are goading a suicidal woman into jumping off a building or drunkenly firing pistols at homosexuals. The result is a film with a perspective as troubled as the world it diligently documents.
