The New Centurions

From PASTO, COLOMBIA-Via: L. A. CA; CALI, COLOMBIA+ORLANDO, FL The ONLY Tony Kiss Castillo on FaceBook!-----------------------------

CENTURIONS, aside from its very special status mentioned above, is quite worthwhile and entertaining. It is an excellent George C. Scott vehicle, well-directed, well-scripted and well edited! Like other quality police dramas, it has several intertwined seamlessly integrated story lines, none of which is left unresolved, or most of which are left unresolved, when the end credits begin to roll...depending on your point of view! At times, on-screen events resonant with such realism that it lends a dimension of docudrama to the overall production.

CENTURIONS clearly transmits the boring nature of most of the daily, moment to moment activities that permeates police work, while, at the same time, emphasizing that this aspect of the job must be tempered by a heightened awareness intrinsic to survival owing to the ever-present possible reality of life-threatening scenarios on a one second event horizon! These "Men In Black" would, undoubtedly, prefer to live in a world where all their on-the-job decision options were delineated by a simple Black or White distinction. The reality of the New Centurions is that they clearly come in every imaginable shade of gray!

Scott's cynical, scarred, veteran, Kilvinski, nearing retirement, has constructed a reality where his quasi-legal technique of locking up street- walkers in his paddy wagon and driving them around all night to keep the streets "clean and decent" is a necessary evil with which he feels, at least, reasonably comfortable!

Keach's enthusiastic and idealistic rookie, Fehler, oozes frustration from every pore, as he perceives the lifeblood of his initial optimism being drained, drop by drop, by the cold, hard cement indifference of L. A.'s Mean Streets! Viewing, impotently, as both his marriage and his upbeat rookie positivism flounder in an ocean of problems, he finds consolation and support in the arms of a sensitive and empathetic nurse, played by Rosalind Cash.

Here is where I will reference the "Unheralded Epic First in Cinema History": I suppose that today, in 2015, in a perfect world, we are not supposed to notice or mention a good number of things because we must be "P. C.", right? But CENTURIONS wasn't made in 2015...It was released in 1972! To the best of my recollection, in the early 70's, whenever we saw a bi-racial on screen couple, which was really not all that frequently to begin with, their racial difference was always a focal point of the relationship. Usually because of the problems they encountered because of this difference from friends, from relatives or parents, from those in authority or simply from others in society!

How briskly refreshing that in CENTURIONS they were just a police officer and a nurse who cared very dearly for one another...Absolutely no mention, whatsoever, of their racial difference! Isn't that exactly the way it should be? The way it is now??? (Well, almost, anyway!).

Hope to get some feedback from someone, anyone, on this aspect of the movie.

9* Stars! ENJOY!/DISFRUTELA!