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Freebie and the Bean

Play trailer Poster for Freebie and the Bean R 1974 1h 52m Action Play Trailer Watchlist
Watchlist Tomatometer Popcornmeter
23% Tomatometer 26 Reviews 68% Popcornmeter 1,000+ Ratings
Two wisecracking plain-clothes San Francisco policemen discover that there is a contract on the life of the suspect they have been tailing. The pair decide to act as bodyguards until they can get a warrant to pick him up, but plans for a clean arrest go spectacularly wrong, and the two cops manage to bring the city to a virtual standstill.
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Freebie and the Bean

Freebie and the Bean

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Critics Consensus

A sour blend of misguided comedy and all-out action, Freebie and the Bean is a buddy cop picture that's far less than arresting entertainment.

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Critics Reviews

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Joe Pollack St. Louis Post-Dispatch 05/05/2021
Robert Kaufman wrote the screenplay from a story by Floyd Mutrux, who is credited as the executive producer, and both men should be forced to spend the next few decades watching what they have wrought. Go to Full Review
Charles Champlin Los Angeles Times 05/05/2021
The most schizoid film recipe of current memory. It is as if several different cooks had tried to poison the broth. Go to Full Review
Elston Brooks Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com 05/05/2021
Too often, producer-director Richard Rush startles us with injected scenes of violence that quickly turn comedic happenings into scenes of dismaying grimness. Go to Full Review
Eddie Harrison film-authority.com 07/02/2023
5/5
…a tough guy comedy classic, fearlessly reflecting the racial and sexual issues of 1974 within a buddy cop narrative, with Arkin and Caan showing great charisma as the cops involved… Go to Full Review
Gay Community News Staff Gay Community News (Boston) 09/21/2022
A cold, heartless, and deadening picture. Go to Full Review
Drag Staff Drag 05/12/2022
The film can be confusing at times since it seems to go in too many directions but Morley's portrayal is bewitching. Go to Full Review
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Audience Reviews

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Stephen C @bob25009 Aug 5 Success in 1 hour and 52 minutes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Dubbed and subtitled in worldwide studios!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! See more Thomas B @Scubavich Jul 11 Weirdly enough I’m not a Kubrick fan & you can’t believe everything you read (especially on line) but supposedly he thought Freebee & The Bean was one of the best pictures he’d seen. Maybe I just like the nostalgia of it all &’how non modern PC it is but I’d guess Kubrick knows more about film than most critics & particularly I !!! See more Vik D Mar 25 good action and comedy blend in this movie See more CodyZamboni Z @CodyZamboni 06/29/2024 High energy , never boring, but the two leads are too wacky crazy to create any rooting interest, The stuff they do really strech credibility, Alot of their banter is unintelligible, That said, there are top notch large scale car stunts , with hundreds of San Franciscan extras fleeing the destruction, Movie's tone goes hard core dark at the end, Valerie Harper adds comic class, and is the only appealing character, Alot of the stunts, the filmmakers make no effort to hide the obvious stuntmen who look nothing like James Caan and Alan Arkin See more acsdoug D @acsdoug 05/26/2024 Alan Arkin and James Caan shoot a bunch of people and destroy half of San Francisco. When this movie first came out I thought it was hilarious. Not so this time around; it's safe to say that a teenager's sense of humor is not the same as an old man's sense of humor. Still, it was entertaining enough. See more Ravenswood R 09/23/2023 Two plain clothes San Francisco cops with New York accents do incredibly violent things for two hours while acting incredibly stupid and immature. Zany hi-jinks and wanton disregard for human life are combined at a level of uncontrolled idiocy. It is absolutely unfunny and completely rudderless in terms of story of plot. A collection of dumb sketches and poorly written scenes held together by some loosely defined police business the main characters are pursuing. All of the characterizations are totally inane. Alan Arkin yells at people all the time for no reason. James Caan is a wise cracking, affable doofus. They kill people, and laugh about it. Valerie Harper is Mexican, unconvincingly. The action scenes are complex and very well edited. That is the best and only well made thing about this movie. If you like extended car chase and insane bar room brawl-esque scenes in the context of a very bad film, this is your dream come true. See more Read all reviews
Freebie and the Bean

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Movie Info

Synopsis Two wisecracking plain-clothes San Francisco policemen discover that there is a contract on the life of the suspect they have been tailing. The pair decide to act as bodyguards until they can get a warrant to pick him up, but plans for a clean arrest go spectacularly wrong, and the two cops manage to bring the city to a virtual standstill.
Director
Richard Rush
Producer
Richard Rush
Production Co
Warner Brothers/Seven Arts
Rating
R
Genre
Action
Original Language
English
Release Date (Theaters)
Dec 25, 1974, Original
Release Date (Streaming)
Aug 4, 2009
Runtime
1h 52m
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