McQ

McQ is a 1974 crime drama set in Seattle, where a veteran police detective named Lon McQ learns that his closest friend on the force has been killed. When the department declines to treat the death the way he believes it deserves, McQ takes matters into his own hands, pursuing a drug kingpin he holds responsible and eventually leaving the police to work privately. His investigation leads him toward evidence of corruption inside the department itself, tied to drugs that were taken off the streets and then diverted.

John Sturges directed the film, the seventeenth of the eighteen features he made and the one that followed The Valdez Horses and preceded The Eagle Has Landed. Lawrence Roman wrote the screenplay, with Arthur Gardner and Jules V. Levy producing for Warner Bros. and Batjac Productions. John Wayne plays McQ, heading a cast that also includes Eddie Albert, Diana Muldaur, Colleen Dewhurst, Clu Gulager and David Huddleston, with thirty-eight credited performers in all.

The film runs 111 minutes and was released in February 1974. It took about 9 million dollars worldwide, a modest return for a Warner Bros. production of its scale. On IMDb it holds 6.2 out of 10 from roughly 6,500 votes, and on TMDB 6.1 from about 110. A critics' rating of 5.6 from eleven reviews places it close to the audience scores, suggesting a broadly similar reception across both groups.