Shamus

No-nonsense title for a no-nonsense ex-pool player turned private eye. Hired by a shady rich man to find out who killed a diamond thief, Reynolds stumbles on something bigger: gun-running and the illicit sale of surplus US military equipment. He is also stumbled upon (metaphor intended) by Dyan Cannon, as the voluptuous sister of an ex-football star, who thinks her brother's somehow involved and enlists the shamus' professional help. It's a stereotyped, amoral tale; the film doesn't bother to tell us who is running guns, where and why. Kulik is more concerned with careful social and dramatic realism; the shamus is no Bond-fantasy hero, just a tough guy who hits first and asks questions later, and is frankly a stud. Little details (like the way he mouths 'Shit!', and when the window sticks), the unsentimental but real moments of male comradeship between him and a cop, him and his underworld contacts, the downbeat ending, make the film worth watching.