DVDs in Review

The Seven-Ups (Philip D’Antoni, 1973)

Title: The Seven-Ups (Philip D’Antoni, 1973)

Release date: August 9 2010

Certificate: 15

Format: DVD

RRP: £15.99

Rating: 3/5

Reviewed by Dave Lancaster

They don’t make films like ‘The Seven-Ups’ any more, which is a shame. While this certainly isn’t a classic, or even that memorable, its brutally direct style has become closely associated with typical 70s crime cinema – a fine era for filmmaking before the blockbuster gimmick period came into play.  

‘The Seven-Ups’ could be seen as an inferior sequel to ‘The French Connection’ – both star the ever-dependable Roy Scheider as a tough city cop after elusive criminals in an urban underworld. Here he heads a group of cops who deal with crimes that would give their perpetrators seven years in prison or more.

Set very firmly in New York, it portrays the organised crime as both double crossing and not all that organised. A string of kidnappings of high profile Mafioso members has left both the cops and the victims themselves baffled – it’s a power play, but is playing who?

It doesn’t actually matter. The plot takes a back seat, giving Scheider a chance to edge out a ferocious screen presence. The cop with nothing to lose has been handled countless times before, but you believe it with Scheider whose career in the 70s was both inspiring, successful and risky – ‘The French Connection’, ‘Jaws’, ‘Marathon Man’, ‘Klute’, ‘Sorcerer’ and ‘All That Jazz’ being prime examples.

Here Scheider holds it all together. Elsewhere, the focus is police procedural – lots of waiting around, stakeouts and actual detective work which paints a portrait of a community in change. Also thrown in the mix is another staple of 70s cinema – the car chase. Without any music or dialogue, this one manages to credibly stretch itself to nearly 10 minutes through tight city streets to expansive parkways before ending abruptly, further cementing this film’s punchy style.

Interestingly, this is the only film ever directed by Philip D’Antoni, who served as the producer of two other fantastic police procedural thrillers that happened to have groundbreaking car chases – ‘The French Connection’ and ‘Bullitt’. Watching ‘The Seven–Ups’, it’s evident that he had potential which was never given time to be brought out.