Partners (1982)

The partners go live in the gay community to find the killer. They befriend some gays , start putting the pieces together. One of the cops(O'Neal) poses for a gay magazine and befriends the gril in charges of the magazine.This in too almost blows the two partners cover. John Hurt tells the boss but the boss tells him to not bother him. The suspense build up as the two partners find out who the killer is. The ending is sad for a comedy(one of the partners is shot and killed). In a way this movie was breaking ground for many gay mainstream movies of today such as "In and Out" and "Three to Tango". I know there's other too numerous to count!If you like John Hurt and Ryan O' Neal either buy or rent this movie tonight !It will change your POV on the gay communty and the way we humans treat others who are different than ourselfs!


Offensive? NOT!   November 26, 1999
T. Garcia (Venus, FL)
7 out of 8 found this review helpful

Exactly what did Mr. Maltin find offensive in this film? A homophobic learning not to fear people different than himself and actually coming to care deeply for another human being? Or that it portrayed a homosexual loving a straight man in a non-sexual context and not changing the orientation of either character? Perhaps he thinks O'Neal's character should have been "outed" or Hurt's should have been "converted"? God forbid that two people with such divergent sexual orientations should ever be portrayed as being able to co-exist as just friends. I happen to think this was a very good illustration of two people coming to care for and respect one another for who and what they were.


Nice early treatment of a tricky topic, plus a good story   January 15, 1999
5 out of 7 found this review helpful

Okay, what's-his-name sniffed so deeply at this movie that his sinuses will be feeling it for years. But. Insofar as this movie represents gay culture a few years ago, well, it was just fine, if that's what concerns you. It's a movie, all right? I enjoy it because it speaks to a lot of tensions between straights, gays and others in a friendly way. If you have any of this tension in your life, from one side of the fence or the other, this movie will help you laugh at it and maybe provoke a conversation or two. Or forestall one. Whichever. Hurt's character is a stand-out. He is believeable and has a really great range. O'Neal's is of course a macho guy, relatively rangeless, but undergoes a transformation by having to see things from Hurt's (character's) point of view. And meanwhile there's a whodunnit going on that keeps your attention, which is more than I can say for some of the academy-award winners this year. Neither character is sandbagged in the least, and you can like both of them by the end, which is also for some reason becoming a rarity. So, three stars. One for entertainment, one for working in a tricky topic during a time when that pretty much guaranteed a shall-we-say select audience, and another one for leaving everyone on their own side of the couch at the end, without an icky feeling of having been 'recruited' somehow. Know what I mean?


Very dated for this day and age...   June 1, 2002
3 out of 7 found this review helpful

The movie handled this touchy topic well enough for it's time period, but now it feels very dated. There are some nice moments, such as when the straight cop finds out what it's like to be on the other end of the prejudice spectrum, from the inside. However, it really annoyed me that all the gay charactes were portrayed as complete stereotypes: drama queen or leather daddy. There seems to be nothing in between.


Great Comedy   July 25, 2005
Dr. John A. Hamel V (Kensington, MD USA)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful

I originally rented the movie in the 1980s. I tried purchasing it recently, but was only able to find it used in a few places on-line, and only in a VHS format. I wish that it would be available in DVD format.