Some of the jokes are so raucously or goofily low-minded that you may laugh out of a kind of shocked weakness.
40
The Observer (UK)
The Observer (UK)
Aldrich is at his most crudely anarchic and macho celebrating the saintly community service and childish off-duty antics of Los Angeles's hard-nosed uniformed cops, starring Charles Durning, Perry King et al. [25 Feb 2007, p.6]
37
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
To my mind, this is one of Robert Aldrich’s worst films, but clearly not everyone agrees.
30
NewsweekDavid Ansen
NewsweekDavid Ansen
[Aldrich's] aiming so low in The Choirboys that he's even lost his technical competence; the movie's not just fetid, it's inept. [02 Jan 1978, p.59]
The film features a great cast and is adapted from a funny and moving book by Joseph Wambaugh, but the result is an abysmal, disjointed mess.
20
Time Out
Time Out
The book's humour was the ribald and understandable explosion of a safety valve; here it is merely an offensive display of stereotyping, sexism and patronising insincerity. A travestied misrepresentation and a notably complete failure.
When Robert Aldrich's filmmaking is good, it's very, very good; and when it's bad it's awful. This cheap-looking ultra-raunchy alleged comedy about policemen leaves no stone unturned in its exploitation of vulgarity.
The movie, which Mr. Aldrich directed from a screenplay by Christopher Knopf, is cheap and nasty without having any redeeming vulgarity and absolutely no conviction of truth.