text: The four LA cops in fedoras driving around in a big black convertible look faintly absurd, and even more ridiculous when it turns out that Nick Nolte, the dumbest-looking of the lot, is in charge. The writer never manages to create a spirit of camaraderie among the squad members, and the director fails to wring articulacy out of the man-mountain Nolte. Foprget questioning anyone. Nolte's character lights a cigaret, gets mad, and beats interviewees to a pulp. His methods get him nowhere, until at one point in the action he is wandering from tossed residence to tossed residence with his mouth open and his brain shut. He smashes up an FBI squad, and throws two military officers out of a plane in flight, with only a vague report of anger at HQ and no punishment at all. At the end of the film he is as gormless and muscle-bound as he was at the outset. How he managed to get a beautiful whore to fall deeply in love with him is a mystery, as is the eternal devotion and tragic sense of betrayal expressed by his jobless wife. Two interesting shots in the picture: one, of an atomic explosion, the other of a gigantic crater, ostensibly caused by a Bomb. It's almost as wrecked and puffy as Nolte's face.