ThiefHott Too much of everything

SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie

FeistyUpper If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

roadcam Being a lifelong Joseph Wambaugh fan (I have read almost every book he's written), I was anxious to buy a DVD of the ' Choirboys', one of my favorite books ... I have read that Wambaugh hated the movie so much, he sued to have his name removed from it's credits ... I understand perfectly ... This is, without a doubt, the WORST film ever made ... it easily stands up to the very worst of cinema history ... forget 'Attack of the Giant Tomatoes', or 'Plan 9 from Outer Space', etc., they are masterpieces compared to this turd ! ... Total waste of time and money ... a decent cast, wasted on a pathetic mess ... the acting is beyond amateurish ... Randy Quaid, a joke of an actor anyway, portrayed the WORST drunk scene ever attempted ... even the sound is terrible, with many portions sounding like they were dubbed in during a bad hangover ... check out the 'laughing fit' scene of Burt Young's scene, it sounds as though a cackling old bag-lady was hired to do the scene ... btw, Young gave the only a decent performance, evidence of his skill as an actor ... I'm finished, this mess has already gotten more attention than it deserves ...

Jonathon Dabell Director Robert Aldrich doesn't often deliver a film that falls in the middle ground. Most of the time, Aldrich's name on the film either guarantees a good movie or an absolutely terrible one. The Choirboys is Aldrich at his very worst – if you thought The Grissom Gang and Hustle were bad, you ain't seen nothing yet! It is a tasteless and repetitively episodic story, a complete mess of a film which merely reinforces the very prejudices that it is supposedly criticising. Nothing about the film works, not even slightly. Joseph Wambaugh, who penned the original novel upon which the movie is based, was so appalled at this travesty that he took legal action to have his name removed from the credits! That should tell you all you need to know.A unit of L.A. cops spend their shifts patrolling the city in search of violence and sleaze. When they're on duty they are little better than thugs with a badge, dishing out justice with total disregard for moral standards and public safety. When they're off duty they are even worse, spending their nights getting drunk in a local park and acting like hooligans. Slowly but surely, each character's motivations are revealed. For example, Officer Sam Lyles (Don Stroud) is shown to be an ex-Vietnam vet whose wartime experiences have left him claustrophobic. In one harrowing scene, he flips out whilst drunk in a locked police van and kills a hustler, a shocking act that the higher echelons of the L.A. force are only too keen to cover up. A pair of cops (Randy Quaid, Tim McIntire) are assigned to talk a suicide jumper down from a high-rise building, but their approach is so unsubtle and aggressive that she ends up flinging herself to her death. One cop, the handsome all-American Baxter Slate (Perry King), is found out as a kinky sex addict and disowned by his colleagues, leading to such personal shame that he commits suicide. And so it goes…. the cops continually foul up one job after another with their trigger-happy attitudes, their racist and sexist unprofessionalism, and their reckless disregard for true law and order.There are those who hail The Choirboys as a blackly comic expose of the police profession. But in truth there is nothing funny about this horrible little film. Aldrich virtually hammers us over the head with extreme vulgarity and offensiveness to make his point, and the approach is so heavy-handed and unpleasant that the film becomes a challenge to sit through. The cast of terrific actors are particularly embarrassing in their thankless roles, none more so than Lou Gossett Jr, Charles Durning and Robert Webber (the latter especially degraded by his part as a callous superior officer with an immoral personal agenda). Christopher Knopf's screenplay offers no glimmer of salvation for the gallery of slimeball characters, so that as the film comes to an end after its interminable two hours the viewer is left with a nasty taste in the mouth and an empty feeling in the stomach. Avoid The Choirboys – it's one of the worst of all-time!

brianh32 Before you go on to complain about this movie, you need to realize it was filmed 30 years ago. I was 1 year old when this movie came out and I have grown up around cops. I have very little doubt these antics used to go on but now they are left as a part of history. How do you expect a group of guys with a high school diploma, Vietnam war service and a thankless job to behave? Have you ever gotten off work so late the bars are closed but you want to blow off some steam about the things that happened to you? Where do you go when the bars are closed? Just as Blazing Sadles could not be filmed today, I don't think you could film this movie either. I doubt society or departments approved of this behavior but I am certain a blind eye was turned. Now since the Rampart scandal, Rodney King and other incidents nobody can do this anymore. If you want to try to understand why this movie is funny, try doing a Google search for, "Why cops hate you"

Marco Trevisiol I first saw this film over a decade ago and recalling from what I saw of it to be an abysmally lame and foul film. I then decided to have a second look a couple of years ago to see whether my initial reaction was correct and, if anything, I was too kind to it.This is as bad a film as I've ever seen. It's not just because the film has gutter-level humour and is relentlessly crude. It's not just because it's technically inept and cheap, with 'outside' scenes obviously filmed on interior sets. And it's not just because a good cast and director is wasted on such a filthy, demeaning film.Above all, what makes this film so wretched is the inherent dishonesty of this film, that it's an 'anti-establishment' film in the style of MASH. The notion is totally absurd when the subject of the film is one of the central pillars of the establishment in society - the police force. This is why their 'rebellious' behaviour is mainly targeted at the oppressed like homosexuals.Genuinely 'anti-establishment' films of this era had the heroes attack the privileged, elitist echelons of the college scene (Animal House) or the armed forces (MASH). 'The Choirboys' is the direct opposite and a completely repellent 'establishment' film.