A killer seems to be killing gay male models. The police chief orders str8 Sgt. Benson (Ryan O'Neal) to team up with gay police clerk Kerwin (John Hurt). They're to play a gay couple and find out if anyone in the gay community can help them.Some people leaving reviews on this site says this film is NOT anti-gay. Oh really? Every single offensive gay stereotype is bought out and presented to the audience to laugh at it. Aside from Hurt ALL the gay men here are sex-obsessed, speak with lisps, are VERY fem or screaming queens. Then the film throws in a sequence where some police officers taunt the guys calling them every offensive name in the book. These officers are shown as being wrong--but that's one small part of a movie that has virtually nonstop homophobic jokes. That doesn't excuse it at all. To make matters worse the murder mystery investigation is very dull and totally uninteresting. By the end I didn't care who was murdering the guys. And even WORSE the movie ends with a homophobic joke at the expense of Hurt! The script is terrible and the direction uninspired. Hurt (understandably) looks miserable all the time. O'Neal manages to give out a good performance despite the material.Why was this made? It came out in 1982 and it was offensive then and it's even worse today. Critics tore it apart, audiences ignored it and it quickly slipped into oblivion. I believe O'Neal said years later that this movie was a "mistake" and Hurt says he doesn't remember anything about it. That should tell you all you need to know. A sick homophobic piece of garbage. A must miss.

The concept of pairing a heterosexual police detective (Ryan O'Niel) with a gay police department employee (John Hurt) in order to go undercover in the gay community to solve a serial murder case could have been handled with mutual respect. However, throughout the film, the homosexuals portrayed fulfill all homophobic stereotypes. They are depicted as lisping, limp wristed, mincing, pastel wearing comic relief. Meanwhile, the heterosexual police detective is portrayed as a womanizing, promiscuous, skirt chaser to convince the audience that he is 100% heterosexual. All dialog between heterosexual police department employees is homophobic, sympathetic to the undercover detective having to pretend to be a "faggot" and derogatory about the "faggot" gay police department employee. They had three opportunities to save the film. The first is when the undercover police partners are arrested along with a gay they attracted in order to interview. The arresting police refer to the trio as "faggots" and "girls", humiliating the gay character. But, Ryan O'Neil's character does no more than ask for the return of the man's clothes: no personal interaction occurs. In a humorous moment, on his way out of the shared apartment with the doting homosexual partner, Ryan O'Neil instinctively gives a quick peck on his partner's cheek. But, Ryan O'Neil's subsequent reaction is disgust. Near the end of the film, Ryan O'Neil's character is trying to encourage his gay partner (John Hurt) by making empty promises of continuing to live together. But, instead of a "The Crying Game" finding of a new found acceptance by the heterosexual lead of his gay love interest, they end the film by having another character taunt Ryan O'Neil's character by telling him that John Hurt's character had believed his empty promises which immediately causes revulsion in Ryan O'Neil's character. They walk away laughing at the expense of the deceived gay man. This is not a gay positive, acceptance learned dynamic by the main characters. This motion picture is one long "faggots are funny" mockery of gay men. If you are gay friendly, this film will infuriate you and have you checking the year it was released (1982) for some clue as to why the studio would release a homophobic film. We tolerated this homophobia in films released before 1969-1973 because of the philosophy of the general audience. But, for 1982, a homophobic "let's make a comedy about a good looking heterosexual man forced to spend time with faggots!" was not a politically correct decision. Why not make a film about a white cop forced to work with a black cop? They would not have done that: white supremacist dialog mixed with denigrative Black stereotypes would have outraged the audience. But, for this studio, screenwriter, director, producer and cast, "faggots are funny" was their objective. This film will only appeal to people who long for the 'good old days' when gays and lesbians were suppressed and legally humiliated.

This 46-year-old, (now 47-year-old) lifelong gay native of Fort Worth saw this movie when I was 21 years old. I liked it and I didn't like it even then. Gay what? What is 'gay'? Anyway, I enjoyed many things about this movie just as much as I could complain about just as many more that I didn't like. I think that John Hurt and Ryan O'Neil deserved to be shown better than they were shown in "Partners." WARNING: What follows is a big rambling digression from my "Partners" comments. (Updated by original poster on Dec. 30, 2008)______I had seen the movie "Ode To Billie Joe" with my gay parent and my straight sister when it first came out in 1976. We all had known gay people for many years. In those days, the idea of being 'gay' was still kept private and only spoken of in close circles. Times were evolving then, just as they are still evolving now.In my experience back in those days, one's own "gayness" was not talked about openly unless they had a desire to tell their story on Television. In the early to mid 1970s a lot of different kinds of people wanted to be on TV or something like that. I do admire those early open pioneers. Back in the day I remember that 'gayness' (whatever that means) was respected by those who matter. Nobody ever had to make an issue of it, just as I have never done.Neither my gay parent nor I or anybody else cared to talk about our personal business, and it was good in a way and it still is.I had always loved the Bobbie Gentry song that inspired the movie since it was released in 1968. I had to see this movie, of course.I rather understood the idea of Billy Joe's situation and that of the other characters because the story was told from a 1950's rural Mississippi perspective. Later in my life, it was suggested that the end was the particularly offensive part because of a line that was spoken by one of the main characters, and I still agree with that observation. (Though, if the viewer takes into account the locale and time period of the story, the line is actually respectful of the person considering the place and time) Over My 46 years I've seen a lot of movies with gay characters and the only one I ever respected for that effort is "Victor/Victoria" (1982).I didn't care too much for "The Birdcage" (1996) in spite of the talented people that participated in the making of the movie. I despised Nathan Lane's character (though Lane later redeemed himself as a gay/?/ man in the cable series "Sex And The City"). To me, the only good thing about "The Birdcage" was Gene Hackman's stellar performance as the conservative U.S. Senator.In 1973 a wise women said: "Everybody thinks and feels differently as the years go by, don't they"John Martin, 46, Fort Worth, Texas

John Hurt and Ryan O'Neill as a very odd couple. Kerwin (Hurt) and Benson (O 'Neill) both cops are determined to solve a case together. So far nothing unusual... The problem is the victim is a homosexual living in a gay community and Benson and Kerwin have to investigate undercover. So all they have to do is pretend to be a happy gay couple. For Kerwin not too bad. He is gay. But for Benson... He is as straight as straight gets...Actual the story of the movie is not the deepest. What made the movie funny for me was the problems Benson had pretending to be a gay man and the development of their "relationship" And really it has some nice gags.