THE NEW CENTURIONS (PRECINCT 45: LOS ANGELES POLICE.)

US, 1972, 103 minutes, Colour.
George C. Scott, Stacy Keach, Jane Alexander, Scott Wilson, Rosalind Cash.
Directed by Richard Fleischer.

The New Centurions shows U.S. police again. Intentions are good: to give the police image a fair go, not to paint them too black or too white, but as ordinary guys with their own problems, protecting a city, whimsically, angrily, making mistakes, dedicated, lonely. And this is worth offering to the public and what the average audience will get out of the film. But is a pity that it is predictable and cliched and what is aimed at being fair to the police comes across as still too good to be entirely true, too glossy on the seamier side of graft, drugs, etc, and, finally, too sentimental in its presentation of its heroes.

1. The meaning of the title and its reference to Ancient Rome? The tone of the title for a view of the modern police? Was the title justified? The role of the police as modern centurions for modern society? Was this too pretentious a title? The ambitions of the film and the film's achievement? do they correspond?

2. How much insight into police life and work did the film give? The value of its documentary style? The significance and force of the episodes? Did it offer enough sympathy for the men who worked the police force? Was the film in sympathy with the police? Its portrayal of their hard life and the detrimental effects? The pessimism of the deaths in the film?

3. How adequate a portrayal of crime in society did the film give? The types of crime and criminal in modern cities? How accurate, or repellent?

4. What did the film have to say about the police as human beings and professional men, the difficulties of their profession the challenges? Would it attract others to working as police? Why?

5. How was Roy the central character of the film? The focus of the themes through him? The tracing of his life. his decline and death? A pessimistic view of a hero? Trace the details of his life and try to discover what the film is saying about the police: his initiative at the beginning, as a rookie police man at the beginning and keen, his studying of law, his idealism and naivety his relying on models, what he had learnt in his early experience, his relationship with his wife and the growing difficulties, the hardness of the job after his being wounded, his turning to drink, the effect of Kilvinsky's death? His moving in with Laurie, his achieving some happiness even in his hardness, his "realism about his work", the impact of his death, its meaninglessness? What insight into his character did the film give; did it mainly stay on the surface? What was it saying about him?

6. The importance of Kilvinsky in the film? the personality and style of George C. Scott. Kilvinsky's methods as an older policeman, his realism and toughness, his image of himself and his work and living to the image the example of his style with the prostitutes the speechifying, his growing disillusionment, his help by having Roy as a friend, his inability to live with his daughter? Was his suicide credible? The dramatic and emotional way in which it was filmed?

7. The significance of Gus in the film, as a parallel to Roy? The impact of his shooting the victim? Should he have made more of it? Its effect on his life and work?

8. How sympathetically did the film portray Dorothy? Was she justified in her complaints against Roy? Did the film give insight into the policeman's wife? Her difficulties in life? Were they right to separate? How sad was this in view of the work being done?

9. How attractive a character was Laurie? A conventional character?

10. What insight did the film give into the various situations that the police confronted, the minor characters of the city? Did these add to the impact of the film?

11. The film was ugly. Do you think it was real? What was the final reaction to the film and its effect on a modern audience, especially a city audience?