(There may be Spoilers) If it wasn't for Burt Reynolds being in the film "Shamus" I doubt that it would have ever been made. At the hight of his popularity back in 1973 Burt Reynolds could do nothing wrong when it came to getting millions of movie goers to see any film that he was in and "Shamus" is a perfect example of his enormous drawing power back in those days.
You would have thought that the makers of "Shamus" would have given the movie a believable plot but right from the start it's totally unsound with a blowtorch, or flame-thrower, murder of Vincent Pappas and his girlfriend as their both in bed. The killers after setting the entire house on fire jump through the sky-window, in fire-proof suits, and rob the safe of millions of cut and uncut diamonds. They could have easily knocked off Pappas with a silencer gun or even knocked him out cold without drawing any attention to themselves by almost burning the entire house down!
The owner of the stolen diamonds a billionaire named E.J Hume who could have gotten the best detective agencies in the city, or the world, gets in touch with this down and out PI Shamus McCoy Hume's 53 choice! The other 52 private eyes he contacted turned down the job?. Shamus who's either too cheap or so weird that he doesn't even have a bed, in what looks like his Brooklyn loft, to sleep in. Shamus has a mattress attached to his pool table that he, and the many girlfriends and one-night stands that he has in the movie, sleeps on; a pool table on which we never see him pay any pool?
Getting $5,000.00 up front, and $5,000.00 after he finds E.J Hume's diamonds,Shamus goes on his way to find out just what happened to Pappas' stolen diamonds and who was responsible for his, and his girlfriend's's, murder. By this point the movie things really starts to spin out of control with now the US military being involved in some kind of illegal arms dealings by corrupt US Army Col. Hardcore that also involves the secretive E.J Hume.
You begin to wonder just what does Col. Hardcore have to do with E.J Hume's stolen diamonds and the Pappas' murders? As soon as were introduced to Col. Hardcore by Shamus' top squeeze in the movie Alexis Montaigne, who's brother Felix is also involved with E.J Hume in a company that he's a silent partner in, he's killed in broad daylight by E.J Hume's mobsters and both Shamus and Alexis are on the run for their lives.
Were never given to understand just what the connection is between E.J Hume's diamonds and the corrupt Col. Hardcore illegal arms dealings are and where in God's name are the tons and tons of military hardware going to? The Mafia the underground militias or to foreign or domestic terrorist organizations?
Burt Reynolds' Shamus is anything but a decent guy in the movie with him almost strangling, with a sadistically gleeful grin on his face, two helpless persons to death in order to get information from them. This brutal as well as uncalled for action could have easily landed him behind bars in any country on earth for committing crimes against humanity.
Later in the movie Felix is kidnapped by E.J Hume's hoods and almost beaten to death and all you can do is just wonder why? Felix was working with Hume and his mob and at no time in the movie was Felix ever suspected to be turning, or ratting, on Hume? So why is he treated this way? Shamus breaks into Hume's mansion and instead of saving the badly beaten Felix from Hume's thugs and attack dogs gets him shot and killed instead! No wonder Alexis walked out on him at the end of the movie.
The final few minutes of the film is a jumble of shootings dog and fist fights as well as Burt Reynolds' Shamus almost breaking his neck as he, or what was obviously his double, missed grabbing on to a tree branch and landing smack dab on his head on the hard ground below.
The film wasn't a total loss, for me at least, since it had in it the world famous Nine Lives feline star Morris the Cat, who's name for some reason in the movie was just "Cat", as Burt Reynold's co-star and Shamus' room-mate. Morris was by far the most believable handsome and likable character, as well as the best actor, in the movie.
