Hustle is a 1975 American neo-noir[5] crime thriller film directed by Robert Aldrich, and starring Burt Reynolds and Catherine Deneuve.

Gaines then learns that Jerry Bellamy, a murderer he arrested, was paroled after only serving five years of his two life sentences.

That night, Marty Hollinger lies in bed picturing his daughter, Gloria, as she grew from a toddler to teenager.

Meanwhile, Gaines stands on his balcony overlooking Los Angeles, California, while Nicole has phone sex with a client.

In Los Angeles, Gaines removes a picture of Sellers and Gloria Hollinger from the dead girl’s wallet.

After Marty leaves, Paula explains he has never been the same after his traumatic experiences in the Korean War and a sympathetic Gaines gives her his business card in case she needs his help.

The next morning, a narcotics officer gives Gaines a tape recording of Sellers calling Ohio and the bomb blast that killed the union men.

Gaines and Belgrave respond to a telephone call from Paula Hollinger and go to her home where they find a badly beaten Marty.

Gaines has drinks with Paula Hollinger and learns that Gloria was the result of an affair she had while Marty was in a veteran’s hospital being treated for mental illness.

When Marty accuses Gaines of being paid off, the lieutenant shows him film of Gloria and Peggy Summers having sex with a man.

Belgrave protests, but Gaines explains that even though Leo did not kill Gloria, he was a murderer and there are times justice is served by sticking up for the Marty's of the world.

So Burt accepted this as a condition, and we put up our money and went to Paris, and waited on the great lady for a week, and she agreed to do the picture.

And the two leading characters, a Los Angeles police lieutenant and a French prostitute, become unexpectedly interesting because they're made into such individuals by Burt Reynolds and Catherine Deneuve.

"[13] A. H. Weiler of The New York Times wrote, "If this apparent tribute to the Raymond Chandler-Dashiell Hammett detective genre is slightly manipulated for effects, and if it strains a mite too much and too long for its cynicism, it still emerges as a fairly realistic inspection of flawed men's efforts to cope with an obviously flawed urban society.

"[14] Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune awarded a full four stars out of four and wrote that "violence takes a back seat to character development and storytelling techniques that are classical.

"[15] Arthur D. Murphy of Variety wrote, "Because of some over-contrivances in plot, excess crassness and distended length, Hustle misses being the excellent contemporary Bogart–Chandler–Hawks–Warner Bros. cynical urban crime-and-corruption melodrama it so obviously emulates.

However, Robert Aldrich's sharp-looking film has an outstanding cast, well directed to sustain interest through most of its 120 minutes.

"[16] Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times wrote, "While this is a wonderfully flexible genre, it does not accommodate comfortably a self-conscious nostalgia that quickly becomes soggily and cloyingly sentimental because it seems so out of place.

"[17] Gary Arnold of The Washington Post wrote, "Shagan persists in fogging up his scripts with a dense layer of Hollywood weltschmerz that makes it impossible for the interesting or entertaining possibilities in his material to break through ...

Hustle would be easier to consume if it were an unpretentious slice of low-life, but Shagan's sensibility turns it into stale baloney.