It looks like the second shot got him. [spoiler]I didn't think the real Ross was going to testify anyway as he set it up to get heat off him from the organization, the ruse to get Chalmers involved, and the mob to kill the Ross' doppelganger.[/spoiler] Still, if he was still alive, then who knows.
shareHell yeah, because one of his guys was killed.
shareHis guy was injured, not killed. [spoiler]Bullitt got the two hit men, too. I suppose the real Ross shot the security guard and had a gun, but he went down after the first shot.[/spoiler] I didn't think he could have shot again.
shareWrong- you didnt even watch it. His fellow cop died in the hospital. When you kill a cop you can be damned sure that all the cops will be hunting you down.
shareI know what I saw on DVD. [spoiler]Stanton got shot in the leg and made it.[/spoiler] Pay attention to the dialogue. Anyway, these are cops and not the mob. It isn't an eye-for-an-eye. [spoiler]Bullitt killed Ross to screw Chalmers.[/spoiler] He didn't have to kill Ross.
shareThe wounded cop died you blind senile old man- even his wife showed up and cried. Watch the movie first before you comment!
shareHaha. You are crazy, crazy, crazy, SeussMyTub. And I'm not an old man, nor blind, nor senile. It's too bad it's too late for you to watch the movie again the correct way since you are gone. You should not brag about your senility.
I still think Bullitt didn't have to kill the real Johnny Ross at the end and he and everyone else woulda got their promotions if Ross snitched. Then Bullitt coulda moved outta his crummy apartment and prolly married Cathy (Jacqueline Bisset), but I guess they didn't do happy endings back then.
You’re a special kind of dummy. Ross raised his gun and shot at a cop and McQueen. McQueen fired in self defense .
You just sound like another bleeding heart Democrat trying to pull off a hands across America moment here
Why am I a dummy? I think Bullitt was made in the anti-authoritarian 60s where one questioned authority and did not trust them. My opinion is that it's a liberal movie made by liberals. Bullitt is the anti-hero. He doesn't go by the rules. His captain just wants results and let's him go (to an extent). Chalmers represents the higher Federal authority and the higher ups in the police want to play by his rules and make him happy so they can move up and get more funding.
My thinking is why couldn't Chalmers get Ross and try to make him turn against the mob? They were the ultimate bad guys who wanted Ross dead. This could've happened if Ross wasn't killed.
Sure, Ross had a gun, shot one deputy, and was about to shoot at Bullitt. Those are facts, but Bullitt hit him and he was going down with his first shot. I don't think he had to fire his second round to the ♥.
Ross, was a no good double-crosser and came up with his grandiose scheme to get someone else to take the fall to allow him to leave the country, but he could've still been taken into custody if he survived. I think the film makers had Bullitt kill him to just make him more of an anti-hero. He makes Chalmers fold up his case on his own terms.
Youre a dummy and a retard. Plus blind and senile too. Ross got what was coming to him. I bet if you were a judge during that era you'd probably free Charles Manson while youre at it.
shareI just remembered that all the cops were saying Chalmers was "a lotta juice." It meant had Ross lived, then Chalmers would not have had to fold up the case. Whoever made this flick didn't get it. Ross could've been shot and stopped, but lived to testify and everybody ends up being better off for it. The police rank would be promoted and get some federal funds. Chalmers would be a hero by hurting the Mafia. What a stupid ending for this flick. Did Bullitt just realize this after looking in the mirror? That he was a freakin' idiot to pull the trigger a second time!
shareRoss needed to die.
He was a murdering bad guy who put Bullitt thru hell
Welp, I can't argue with that.
That said, it just so happened that Rennick (as Ross) survived, i.e. wasn't killed on the spot by pro hit men sent by the mob who were lusting for revenge and had to put down the squealer. Very convenient so Chalmers wouldn't fold up the case and Bullitt gets a chance to make his anti-authoritarian play.
I love the movie as a star vehicle for McQueen looking cool with his gun holster and Ford Mustang v. Dodge Charger chase, and hot gf Jacqueline Bisset, but the story is lacking.
"Ross" Rennick AND the young cop guarding him were wounded, not killed, in the hotel room attack. At the hospital, "Ross"(Rennick) died, but the young cop survived.
At the airport climax, Bullitt had to kill the real Ross because the real Ross had just fatally shot an airport security guard whose body was blocking Ross' escape through the door to the outside. Trapped and cornered, Ross turned around to fire on Bullitt and Bullitt killed him in self-defense.
Whereas the young cop survived his shooting at the hospital, the airport security cop is clearly dead -a priest gives him last rites and a sheet is put over the body.
In the situation that exists as Ross makes his break for the terminal exit and in the seconds that follow, it's pretty clear that Bullitt has to bring him down. But to really address jasonbourne's question, it's necessary to go farther back, put it in context by considering two key pieces of dialogue and examine how that situation came to exist in the first place.
"With you, living with violence is a way of life. Living with violence and death. How can you be part of it without becoming more and more callous?"
"He's still my witness. I'll be delighted to let you have him after he testifies tomorrow...we must all compromise." - "Bullshit."
Cathy's big speech to Frank isn't just stereotypical, late-'60s "chick stuff" suggesting a lack of understanding of how things work in, shall we say, a man's world. It articulates what I think is the meaning of the final scene back in Frank's apartment, and Frank's mindset leading up to the airport shooting just before it. And his exchange with Chalmers, in spite of its crowd-pleasing, stick-it-to-the-pompous-S.O.B aspect, illustrates how single-minded his focus has become, and out of which he, likely unconsciously, engineers the circumstances making the killing of Ross all but inevitable.
Cont'd...
When Ross's plane returns to the terminal, Delgetti waits on the jetway, but Bullitt boards it, spooking Ross and instigating the chase across the tarmac and into the terminal. And most importantly, Bullitt hides from Delgetti when he and the security guard come down the escalator, and remains so until Delgetti splits from the guard and exits the terminal. A one-on-one shootout is now practically unavoidable.
In other discussions elsewhere, I've described the alarmed expression on Delgetti's face just after he re-enters and his glance shifts from Ross's body to Bullitt as a "What the fuck have you done" look. He realizes Frank was right there, but chose going it alone over teamwork. That scene ends with Bullitt standing rather sheepishly over Ross's body as Delgetti shoos onlookers away and a priest gives last rites to the guard. In the wake of Renick, his wife and the hitmen, two more people who were alive a moment ago are now dead.
In the final scene, Cathy's Porsche outside Bullitt's apartment signals her presence, but Frank's look at her peacefully sleeping form visually links viewers to the last time we saw her ("Your world is so far from the one I know"), and his introspective gaze into the mirror is bracketed by that and the final shot of his gun and shoulder holster on the railing.
Any viewers can take what they will from this brief montage; what I take from it is director Yates's intention that it informs our inferences of what Frank's thinking is at that moment.
When Ross's plane returns to the terminal, Delgetti waits on the jetway, but Bullitt boards it, spooking Ross and instigating the chase across the tarmac and into the terminal. And most importantly, Bullitt hides from Delgetti when he and the security guard come down the escalator, and remains so until Delgetti splits from the guard and exits the terminal. A one-on-one shootout is now practically unavoidable.
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Well, jasonbourne and you have certainly "re-educated me" to at least look at Bullitt -- and FRANK Bullitt -- in a different way.
I suppose the story IS about how Bullitt "doesn't back down" on two occasions and "confronts the bad guys" in a way that requires a "playout to death." He chases the two hitmen in their car(THEY started it, but he turned the tables and followed THEM) and he indeed goes aboard the plane to seek out Ross (how quaint in 1968: Ross was allowed to carry a gun on that plane.)
But with the hitmen in the car, Bullitt has "drawn them out" and he is hellbent on not letting them escape(as one of them already did, in the hospital.)
And with Ross, well, Ross COUJLD have simply given up -- on the plane, or after he would be "naturally" walked off the plane - -but he RUNS(and JUMPS...off the plane.)
And so Bullitt is again forced to chase the man down.
Bullitt's goal in both cases is to "not let them get away." And he doesn't.
As for both Renick and Mrs. Renick...well the hitmen killed him and Ross killed her so...they were all killers, who Bullitt in turn killed.
I would add that certainly Bullitt's goal in " not letting them get away" traces all the way back to when he has Ross/Renick's body "mislaid" for awhile. Bullitt fears Chalmers will close the case, blame the SFPD(nastily as possible) and cut off Bullitt's ability to investigate who ratted out Ross/Renick and got one of his men wounded as well as Ross/Renick killed.
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Bisset's speech to Bullitt amidst the flowers off 101 is indeed NOT chick talk. Her love for "Frank" (the man, not the cop) compelled her to run to that motel room when the uniformed cops went in....she's worried about Frank. She sees the horribly killed Mrs. Renick. Its likely Bisset's (I can't remember the character's name) first REAL confrontation with her man's work.
And hence the speech.
Bullitt's response is important , too, though I can only paraphrase from memory. When she asks how he can work in such a horrible, violent world, he answers:
"That's where half of it is."
Noteable: that's where HALF of it is. I think he's trying to tell her that the other half is rather "banal" -- investigation, questioning, paperwork.
Still, Bullitt is about an EXCEPTIONAL cop -- Frank Bullitt. A man who looks and acts like Steve McQueen and is capable of warmth, sophistication and love with his lady, who is gorgeous and was obviously not an easy catch for any man.
When film writer Danny Peary gave Steve McQueen the "alternative Oscar"(in a book essay) as Best Actor Oscar winner(over real winner Cliff Robertson in Charly) for 1968, Peary opined that if Bisset could see how Bullitt comports himself in the rest of the movie -- his smarts, his lack of affect, his loyalty to his men, his moral clashes with Chalmers, his bravery against armed men -- "she would love him all the more." Bullitt is a hero in Peary's eyes.
"She sees the horribly killed Mrs. Renick. Its likely Bisset's (I can't remember the character's name) first REAL confrontation with her man's work."
- Cathy. And right. He's tried to keep her separated from it, to the point of not talking about it, even when she asks about Del's routine midnight call to tell Bullitt he's finishing his watch: "It's not for you, baby."
"That's where half of it is."
Noteable: that's where HALF of it is. I think he's trying to tell her that the other half is rather "banal" -- investigation, questioning, paperwork."
- Now, this fascinates me. I've always interpreted Frank's "it" to mean life; the world in general rather than police work. I take that from Cathy's response: "I know it's there, but I don't have to be reminded of the whole thing; the ugliness around us."
But you've suggested another way to consider the scene, and their points of view: maybe the world is what she meant, but police work is what he meant. I'll have to cogitate on that. Either way, her concern is the same: what effect is it having on him? And what might be the spillover to her, and them: "What will happen to us in time?"
Frank's reply, pithy yet deep-sounding, is so McQueen, and so taciturn-action-hero: "Time starts now."
It's also no answer. And why I think hers are the questions he's beginning to ponder as he gazes into the mirror at the end.
>>Bisset's speech to Bullitt amidst the flowers off 101 is indeed NOT chick talk. Her love for "Frank" (the man, not the cop) compelled her to run to that motel room when the uniformed cops went in....she's worried about Frank. She sees the horribly killed Mrs. Renick. Its likely Bisset's (I can't remember the character's name) first REAL confrontation with her man's work.<<
I think it was the first time Cathy realized what Bullitt was like, what kind of work he does, and how it affects him. She starts to think twice about their relationship and how she could end up being a cop's wife when his other world is the gutter. She starts to seriously reconsider continuing their relationship. Bullitt could lose her, but he says those lines. The lines are good because she ends up staying as we saw at the end of the movie.
Anyway, it's nice you praise Bullitt right after those lines. It makes it hard for me to point out that Bullitt is also a dumb cop. There is no way I could consider McQueen for best actor. He's too wooden in Bullitt and Paul Newman runs rings around him. Did he somehow get nominated for Best Actor in this? McQueen is a popular actor and he plays the cool guy under pressure well, but can't be considered a serious actor. The only piece of acting I remember is how he is still sleepy, let's Delgetti in, and thinks his partner has gotten him some coffee. Also, how he gets frozen tv dinners as for his meals. It's kinda pathetic, but somehow he has Jacquline Bissett.
ETA: I'm not sure how much of his own stunts McQueen does. If he does all of them, then that would make him more cool and studly. Somehow, I doubt it. I know he can ride a bike (motorcycle) and did so in The Great Escape.
"As for both Renick and Mrs. Renick...well the hitmen killed him and Ross killed her so...they were all killers, who Bullitt in turn killed."
- This points up one of the two levels on which the film can be appreciated. There are those who want nothing more complicated than black hat/white hat "frontier justice" in their entertainment: Bullitt's a cool good guy; Chalmers is a jerk, so the good guy has to stick it to him; killers have to die in the end. And along the way, you've got your chases, your shootouts, your battles-of-will confrontations, your eye candy and all that cool.
For the rest of us, there are layers to peel back and examine in the way of motives, priorities and personalities. There was a 1968 critic (don't recall which) who wrote, "Bullitt is a film about the way things work." The shoe-leather techniques of investigating; administrative and political pressures from inside and outside the department and the conflicts arising from them; autopsies; evidence inspection, etc. And gives us something to think about regarding it all, including everything cited in the paragraph above.
Needless to say, it's on this level I find the film the most rewarding.
Sorry, ecarle, I just saw this.
>>"Ross" Rennick AND the young cop guarding him were wounded, not killed, in the hotel room attack. At the hospital, "Ross"(Rennick) died, but the young cop survived.<<
Stanton didn't have to die and the killers just shot him in the leg and knocked him unconscious. They didn't think he would recognize them, but he did remember the shotgun. It wouldn't be good to kill a cop for nothing.
OTOH, Renick should've been killed. The mob's hit men had enough time to put a bullet through the head. That's one of the funny parts of the movie. Of course, if Renick's killed, then Bullitt could still move him and hide him since he thinks Chalmers would fold up the case on his own. We'd just miss the action at the hospital.
>>At the airport climax, Bullitt had to kill the real Ross because the real Ross had just fatally shot an airport security guard whose body was blocking Ross' escape through the door to the outside. Trapped and cornered, Ross turned around to fire on Bullitt and Bullitt killed him in self-defense.<<
It was a deputy sheriff Ross killed. Chalmers was at the airport and witnessed it all, so he could not complain. That said, they could've written it so Ross was shot, but not killed by Bullitt. It's just as well Ross was killed, as the story was murky and we didn't need any more of this movie to continue. Your explanation of Bullitt vs. Chalmers would have the anti-hero come out on top over the authoritarian bully and that's that.