Leading men and serious actors like Jack Nicholson and James Caan took career nosedives as adult roles evaporated in the youth-dominated cinema of the late '70s and early '80s, but classics like Paul Newman just kept soldiering on. Here the cool hand plays a beat cop patrolling a South Bronx wasteland of crushing poverty, drugs, and crime. How does a man keep his head about him when all around him people are losing theirs? Newman adroitly answers the question in this flinty but otherwise forgettable character study, with Ken Wahl and Ed Asner providing effective contrast as Newman's young partner and no-nonsense precinct captain. Fort Apache was filmed on location to good effect; unfortunately, Pam Grier is wasted as a murderous prostitute.