Tag Archives: Clint Eastwood

The Dead Pool (1988)

Posted on September 30, 2025 | 1 comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Harry marked for murder.

Inspector Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) is still getting ambushed by assassins hired by the criminals he puts away. The department decides to assign him with a new partner, Al Quan, (Evan C. Kim) who’s judo skills will come in handy. The two begin working on a case involving a dead pool, which is a list of San Francisco area celebrities that are expected to die soon either by natural causes, or by murder. The list was created by B-horror director Peter Swan (Liam Neeson) who immediately comes under suspicion when one of the stars of his own movie, Johnny Squares (Jim Carrey) turns up dead from what initially seemed like a drug overdose but later deemed murder. Harry is not happy to find his name is also on the list and this leads to an interview by local TV-reporter Samantha Walker (Patricia Clarkson) who wants to do a bio on him, but Harry resists convinced that she’s only trying to exploit the situation for ratings. 

This marked the fifth and last entry in the Dirty Harry series, which was a film Eastwood had not wanted to do, but was a part of the bargain he made with Warner studio in an effort to get his pet project Bird, which was a bio of jazz musician Charlie Parker, financed. Eastwood along with the studio were aware that that film most likely wouldn’t be a box office hit, so he agreed to do this one, which was sure to be a definite money maker. Yet this one ended up being the least successful of all the films from the series and ultimately helped hasten an end to ever producing another one. 

The formula had clearly run its course by this point, and the action is too predictable to be fun anymore. Things start out absurdly right away when the car Harry is driving gets hit with a hundred different bullets and yet our hero comes out completely unscathed, but there’s no way that could’ve realistically happened. Since the film’s theme is a movie-within-a-movie this part should’ve been done as a cameo appearance that Harry did for one of Swan’s movies, which might’ve offered a cute twist, or an even better idea would’ve had Harry getting injured by one of the bullets and no longer able to, at least for a while, use his hand to pull a trigger and thus forced to come up with creative ways to put away the bad guys, which would’ve added a needed wrinkle that would’ve kept this sequel fresh and different from the others versus the stale way that it quickly becomes.

Teaming him up with an Asian American isn’t interesting either. The other entries all dealt with him partnering with a minority, so by this time the concept lacked any edge. It also wastes Kim’s talents as it’s kind of cool seeing him take down bad guys using his karate talents, but unfortunately, it’s only shown once briefly when it should’ve been spread out all the way through. Having Kim and Harry not see eye-to-eye on things or even challenging his approach would’ve offered some dramatic energy, but overall, the scenes between them, where Kim is compliant and easy going just like all of Harry’s previous partners, makes their moments generic and dull. 

Spoiler Alert!

Harry’s relationship with the reporter is equally unengaging. At first the two sparred and I felt that’s where it should’ve remained but having them eventually ‘connect’ saps away all of the potential spice. Even the mystery angle gets botched. Granted we really don’t know who the killer is as his identity during the killings isn’t shown though we’re led to believe it’s Neeson then it turns out it’s somebody completely different, but it’s a character that isn’t shown upfront, so the viewer can’t try to figure out who it is on their own and the ultimate explanation for what motivates the killer is too pseudo psychological. The final confrontation that he has with the villain, played by David Hunt, who again is a weaker actor and not completely right for the part (Neeson would’ve been far better) is so achingly cliched that it’s almost laughable. 

It does feature a unique car chase, which was one of the few elements from Steven Sharon’s original script that the producers decided to leave in, that has Harry driving a regular sized car as he desperately attempts to outrun a miniature toy car that’s packed with explosives. Everything else though is quite formulaic and uninspired. It’s a good thing that this was the last one as any more would’ve just tarnished the brand further though it would’ve been good to have some finality to it. Instead of just having Harry walk-off after killing what seems to be his 500th bad guy he should’ve been shown handing in his badge and retiring as he was at that age anyways and after having gone through all the violent ambushes he had most would’ve done it much sooner.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: July 13, 1988

Runtime: 1 Hour 31 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Buddy Van Horn

Studio: Warner Brothers

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, YouTube

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Posted in 80's Movies, Fast Cars/Car Chase, Police Drama, Sequels

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Sudden Impact (1983)

Posted on September 29, 2025 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Harry investigates revenge killings.

Inspector Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) continues working in the San Francisco police department despite his perpetual disregard of proper police procedures, which gets many of the crooks that he has arrested freed due to legal technicalities. His superiors are frustrated with him, but since he does get results keeps him on the force though reassigned to the small town of San Paulo where he works with a sheriff Jennings (Pat Hingle) in hopes he’ll be less problematic. It’s there that he comes upon a case of various men being found shot to death in similar ways. This is being done by Jennifer (Sondra Locke) an artist in residence who 10 years earlier was raped along with her younger sister by a group of men and now she’s out to get her revenge by killing them off one-by-one. Harry is starting to piece together the clues but is surprised that Jennings is reluctant to follow-up on them giving him the impression that the sheriff may have something to hide.

The story is based on a script written by Charles B. Pierce better known for his rural horror movies from the 70’s that were shot in Arkansas and loosely based off of real events like The Town that Dreaded Sundown. This was meant to be a starring vehicle for Locke, but when Eastwood decided to renew the franchise after several years of dormancy, he felt the plotline here would be a good fit for the next Dirty Harry movie and thus hired Joseph Stinson to revise it.

The result is a mish-mash that’s never quite as compelling as it should. For the majority of the runtime Eastwood’s heroics and Locke’s crimes are working in a parallel universe and not connected making it seem like two different movies. Harry’s non-stop shootouts with crooks becomes redundant and cartoonish while Locke’s killings and flashbacks make it too reminiscent of other better-known films like I Spit on Your Grave and Death Wish. The bad guys are caricatures to the extreme making their moments boring and predictable. If the violence wasn’t so over-the-top you’d be convinced, like critic Pauline Kael mentioned in her review, that this thing was meant to be a parody.

Locke and Eastwood are both good and this is the last film that they did together as a couple before their break-up. In Locke’s case I liked how her cynical and brash persona mixes with Eastwood’s brooding and quiet one. Eastwood speaks more here than in the previous entries, but the character doesn’t seem to be evolving. The opening scene inside a courtroom where Harry is shocked to learn that the criminals he apprehended will be set free because he didn’t get a search warrant seemed ridiculous as after being on the force for so many years, and going through the exact same predicaments in the earlier films, that you’d think by now he’d learn his lesson and do things that conform within the legal framework, or at the very least not be so surprised when a judge sees it differently. The number of near-death shootouts he goes through is exhausting making me wonder how he maintained his mental state and didn’t take the vacation time when he’s asked even if he’s ‘not up for it’.

My biggest grievance though is with the structure. I really felt it would’ve worked better had it been approached as a mystery. We could’ve still seen the killings being done, but the identity of the killer would’ve been masked. Instead of Locke being an artist she could’ve been on the police force working on investigating the case and Harry could’ve started up a friendship/quasi relationship with her and at the start been impressed with her work only to slowly become aware that she was intentionally mudding the evidence. Sheriff Jennings too could’ve initially been portrayed as a ‘good guy’ with down to earth sensibilities that Harry liked and then as it progressed would his intentions become more dubious. The flashback sequences, which get interspersed throughout, could’ve instead been saved until the very end.

Spoiler Alert!

The film also continues to reveal Harry’s zig-zagging moral logic. In the first film he was all for playing outside the rules, then in the second installment he came to determine that vigilantism wasn’t the answer. Now here, by letting Locke off-the-hook and not arresting here, he’s acting like street justice is okay. It makes you wonder; is he really growing as a person and seeing things differently or simply floating along with whatever way the plotline wants?

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: December 9, 1983

Runtime: 1 Hour 57 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Clint Eastwood

Studio: Warner Brothers

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, YouTube

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The Enforcer (1976)

Posted on September 26, 2025 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Partnering with a woman.

Bobby Maxwell (DeVeren Bookwalter) leads a group known as the People’s Revolutionary Strike Force that is made up of young adults engaged in underground criminal activities. Harry (Clint Eastwood) must work with Big Ed (Albert Popwell) the leader of a black militant group, in an effort to track down Bobby before they do any more damage, but his efforts are stymied by his superior Captain Jerome Kay (Bradford Dillman) who arrests Big Ed before Harry is able to get the information he needs. Things are further complicated by pairing him with Kate (Tyne Daly) as his new partner. Harry doesn’t think much of having women on the force and feels she won’t be able to meet the demands of the job though Kate is intent to prove him wrong.

The original script was written by two young San Francisco area film students who based it off of the 1974 kidnapping of Patty Hearst by the Symbionese Liberation Army. Then after watching some Dirty Harry movies, they decided to rewrite it by incorporating his character into the story. They then visited the Hog’s Breath Inn, a restaurant owned by Eastwood, and handed the script to his business partner Paul Lippman, who in turn gave it to Eastwood. Another script by Stirling Silliphant had already been given to Clint that involved Harry being partnered with a lady cop, a concept that he liked, though he didn’t feel there was enough action in it, so he hired Dean Reisner for a rewrite that would combine elements of both scripts, which is what ultimately became this movie.

The franchise seems to have lost some of its magic. Watching Harry come upon a crime in progress and casually blow away the criminals is no longer as riveting, or shocking and in many ways comes-off as predictable and even cartoonish. The first film did a good job of showing how police work wasn’t always exciting and sexy and could entail doing some boring duties, but here it creates the idea that it’s one pulverizing shootout after another. I didn’t care for the pounding score played over the chase sequences, which the first one didn’t do and was better for it as the music gets a bit distracting and more formulaic like something out of a cop TV-show. Bradford Dillman’s character, as an exasperated police chief, is a complete caricature like a puppet created solely so it can yap at Harry and get him to snarl in return. I wasn’t so crazy either about the humor that seeps in as the first two films had a very serious tone though the scene involving a group of old ladies sitting around a table writing love letters while inside a whorehouse is a definite gem. 

The casting is unique particularly Bookwalter as the head of the criminal gang, who up to this point was best known for starring in Andy Warhol’s experimental film Blow Job, which was a 35-minute movie that had the camera focus solely on Bookwalter’s face as he received fellatio. He also had a brief bit in the second installment of the series playing a naked man who gets killed in a shootout during a sex orgy. Here though he doesn’t have enough of an acting presence to make his moments onscreen interesting like Andrew Robinson did in the first one. He pretty much just seems like a male model with an angry stare and a gun. It’s the same result with popular radio deejay Machine Gun Kelly (Gary D. Sinclair) who gets cast as the priest who runs cover for the bad guys but clearly doesn’t have much acting ability and it’s quite possible that Eastwood intentionally put these guys into these roles knowing this, so that way they’d have no chance of upstaging him. 

I did though like Tyne Daly as Harry’s new partner. She had rejected the role three times due to issues with the script and how her character was portrayed but eventually agreed to get on board once her demand for revisions were met and I’m sure glad she did. She’s not sexy, or beautiful, which is good, and portrays a no-nonsense quality and genuinely seems like she wants to prove herself and dedicated and thus making her appealing right from the start. The only issue is that she’s constantly carrying around a shoulder purse, but why? I’ve never seen a policewoman have one and it seems ridiculous as it impedes her ability to chase after people as she has to grab a hold of it so it doesn’t flop against her body as she moves. 

Spoiler Alert!

Fortunately, the two don’t end up falling in love, the original script had this happening, but this was one of the things Daly insisted had to be taken out before she’d agree to do it, which is good because in real life, especially between professionals, that shouldn’t be occurring. Having her die at the end took me by surprise but is good too as it shows how dangerous police work is and how not every time is the good guy going to come out of a shootout unscathed. 

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: December 22, 1976

Runtime: 1 Hour 36 Minutes

Rated R

Director: James Fargo

Studio: Warner Brothers

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, YouTube

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Magnum Force (1973)

Posted on September 24, 2025 | 1 comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 8 out of 10

4-Word Review: Harry battles renegade cops.

Somebody is killing San Francisco’s well-known criminals who have been able to manipulate the courts in a way that they’ve gotten off and have not served any time. “Dirty” Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) isn’t sure at first who’s behind it, but every time he tries to get investigate his superior, Lt. Neil Briggs (Hal Holbrook) tells him to essentially ‘back off’ and go back to stakeout duty of which he’s been assigned, but in his off hours he continues to pursue it. He comes to the conclusion, after a pimp is shot at close range while sitting in the driver’s seat of his car, that a policeman pretending to be a traffic cop is behind it. He then begins to focus in on four new recruits (David Soul, Robert Urich, Kip Niven, Tim Matheson), who all show remarkable aim on the gun range, as being the ones behind it, but how does he prove it before they kill again, or set their sights on him in order to keep him quiet?

In this follow-up to the classic Dirty Harry the direction isn’t as stylish as Don Siegal didn’t return to helm this one, so the reins were handed over to Ted Post who’s better known for his TV work and which Eastwood knew through them working together on the ‘Rawhide’ TV-show from the 50’s. While not all bad there were certain segments that appeared a bit off like when the motorcycle cop pulls over the mob boss, played by Richard Devon, who’s riding in a limousine. The car clearly comes to a stop on a well-traveled bridge, but when the men inside the vehicle get shot you can see through the rear window that the car now appears parked in some urban neighborhood street. The segment where Harry drives into the parking garage of his apartment complex and then gets out of his car after parking it only to be surprised when the four renegade cops, who are also parked there on their motorbikes, begin speaking to him, is botched too as Harry would’ve seen them already there when he drove up and thus the scene should’ve been shot from his point-of-view through the front windshield of his car.

The action segments though are top notch. The scene inside an airplane where Harry disguises himself as a pilot in order stop hijackers from taking it over is both funny and tense as is his shooting down thieves trying to rob a grocery store. The gun range segment, where he and David Soul compete to see who’s the most accurate shooter, is well-handled as is the final chase inside an abandoned airplane hangar in a shipyard. There’s also a cool, but grisly sex orgy shootout in which a naked woman’s body tumbles out a high-rise apartment and then down several flights. You can also spot a nude Suzanne Somers during a poolside massacre.

The film also features the infamous Drano scene where a pimp, played by Albert Popwell, forces a prostitute, played by Margaret Avery, to swallow drain cleaner, which inspired a group of criminals in Ogden, Utah to try and replicate it when they robbed a record store and took the employees hostage on April 22, 1974 in what became known as the Hi-Fi Shop murders. However, instead of instantly killing the victims like it did in the movie it instead created blisters on their mouths and internal burning, which caused them to go through extreme suffering for hours.

My biggest complaint is how Harry is too nice and has lost some of his edge that made him so interesting. In the first film he was described as someone that didn’t like minorities, but here he’s matched up with an African American partner, played by Felton Perry, right off-the-bat with no complaints. He’s also seen with children in one segment and seems to enjoy them, but I’d think with Harry’s irritable temperament he’d find kids running around and making noise to be annoying. A downstairs neighbor lady, played by Adele Yoshioka, comes on to him quite strongly, she literally walks out into the hallway as he’s coming home and asks him what she needs to do in order to go to bed with him, which seemed too forward even for the carefree 70’s. I agree with John Milius who wrote the original draft of the screenplay where that scene was not in there but got added later at Eastwood’s behest. Harry was not the sociable type and if anything, he’d be doing prostitutes simply as a release for his sex drive. The character really didn’t have the capacity nor desire for a relationship and if he was married to anything it would be his job and mowing down bad guys making this romantic segment forced and not believable.

The bad guys are a bit too cliched and dull, especially the mob bosses, which is a far cry from the first one where Andrew Robinson made his psycho character quite distinct and intriguing. One scene has a group of mafia guys sitting around a table eating Chinese food, but none of them says a word, which to me was not realistic. Even bad people still follow sports, weather, and current events and would like to chat a little with those around them, supposedly these are their ‘friends’ since they work closely together, and not just eat in stone cold silence, which paints them too much as robots with no life, or personality outside of being killing machines.

While it’s fun seeing Urich and Soul in early roles and in Urich’s case looking downright boyish, the four renegade cop’s presence onscreen is quite flat. There’s no distinction between their personalities and no backstory given to how they came together, or what brought them to becoming vigilantes. Did they have a loved one, for family member die at the hands of a criminal who then was given a lenient sentence? This is never explained, or elaborated on, but really should’ve.

It’s also confusing to have Harry, who in the first installment was fed-up with the politics of policework and looking to work ‘outside the system’ suddenly dislike these guys for doing what he himself had previously advocated. Would’ve been more interesting had they invited him to join the group, and he initially obliged thinking this would be a good to solution to criminals getting off easy only to eventually realize the group was taking things too far and then work to stop them. 

My Rating: 8 out of 10

Released: December 25, 1973

Runtime: 2 Hours 3 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Ted Post

Studio: Warner Brothers

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, YouTube

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Dirty Harry (1971)

Posted on September 22, 2025 | 7 comments

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 10 out of 10

4-Word Review: Cop doesn’t like rules.

A psychotic who goes by the nickname of Scorpio (Andrew Robinson) has pledged to kill one person a day unless the city of San Francisco forks over $100,000 with his first victim being a woman (Diana Davidson) taking a swim in a pool on a rooftop of a high rise. The mayor (John Vernon) agrees to give into the killer’s demands much to the objections of Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) a hard-nosed cop who believes criminals are coddled by the system at the expense of their victims. Yet Harry, who’s known by his fellow cops as Dirty Harry, which he acquired for his well-known ability to circumvent rules that he doesn’t agree with, must go along with the demands of his department forcing him to act as the delivery of the ransom. This causes him to go through the humiliation of running all around the city at the whim of Scorpio who gives him directions of where to go next via different pay phones in the area. When Harry almost gets killed by doing this and then asked to be the delivery guy again, he walks out insisting that appeasing the killer is the wrong way to go. This causes even further irritation when Scorpio is later caught by Harry and then freed on a technicality convincing him that he must work on his own time in order to get the Scorpio put away permanently.

The script was written by the married team of Harry Julian Fink and his wife Rita. The inspiration came from the real-life Zodiac case who terrorized the city of San Francisco during the late 60’s and was never caught. The main character was supposed to be someone in their 50’s and was originally offered to Frank Sinatra, who had difficulty holding the Smith and Wesson gun, and decided to bow out. It was then offered to Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, who had just gotten done playing a cop in a movie and didn’t want to have to do another one, as well as George C. Scott and Burt Lancaster who both rejected it due to their feelings that the story’s theme was right-wing.

As a cop film it’s by far one of the best and has a lot of unique moments. Because Bullit had come out just a few years earlier, which featured a very famous car chase, it was decided not to replicate that one and instead we get treated to some very exciting foot chases with one occurring inside a factory mill and another at Kezar Stadium late at night. What makes these chases so interesting is that there’s no musical score played over them like in most movies, but instead we hear the pounding of their feet on the pavement and other outside ambience that helps to make these sequences grittier and more captivating. When the music does get played it’s when Scorpio is aiming his rifle to kill someone, but has the distinct sound of female vocals, which composer Lalo Schifrin put in to represent the voice he felt Scorpio was hearing inside his head.

Eastwood has made a career of playing this type of role, but here it comes off as fresh and like it was perfectly written for him and no one else could’ve played it better. His patented grimace and squint really work here and it’s interesting seeing the way his crusty exterior softens a bit as the film progresses and I liked the contrast of pairing him with a younger, less experienced cop, played Reni Santoni, that Harry initially thinks very little of, but eventually grows to like and respect. The conversation that he later has with Reni’s wife, played by Lyn Edgington, in which they discuss the emotional toll that being a cop can do to an individual really exposes the challenging job that it is as does Harry’s night on patrol where he’s forced on the spot without preparation to take on many difficult tasks including talking a man down from jumping off a building. This all helps to unglamorized the life of a cop while also revealing the underlying stressful nature of the position and why so many men and women that do it will eventually get burned out. 

Andrew Robinson, in his film debut, is excellent as well with a distinct eyes and face that looks constantly creepy. Normally I’d complain that we learn very little about his character nor the motivation for why he kills, but keeping him as an enigma helps put the focus on the main message, which is the rights of the victims and cops who try to protect them and by making Scorpio have a distinct personality would’ve humanized him and thus deluded the theme. Even so Robinson makes the most of each scene he’s in and he consistently stands out no matter what he’s doing, like the almost comical facial expression he makes when he gets stabbed in the leg. I also liked how after he does get stabbed that he then continues to walk and run with a limp versus other films where someone gets injured and they quickly recover, and it eventually becomes all but forgotten. 

Spoiler Alert!

My only complaint is how at the very end Harry throws away his badge and walks off the job. Director Don Siegel and Eastwood argued about this with Eastwood feeling Harry wouldn’t do this as being a cop was the only job he knew and his relentless pursuit for justice and putting bad guys away would overpower his urge to quit. Even if he was unhappy with some of the police procedures, he’d still put up with it, or fight to improve things from within. This is why at the end he should’ve taken out his badge and looked at it like he was thinking of throwing it, but then eventually put it back into his pocket. 

My Rating: 10 out of 10

Released: December 23, 1971

Runtime: 1 Hour 42 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Don Siegel

Studio: Warner Brothers

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, YouTube

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Any Which Way You Can (1980)

Posted on February 8, 2025 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Betting on a fight.

Philo (Clint Eastwood) is still working as a trucker, still travels around with his pet orangutan Clyde, and still lives at home with his mother (Ruth Gordon) while getting involved in some bare-knuckle fights on the side to earn some extra money. He also continues to be harassed by the Black Widow biker gang who constantly hound him to even a past score. Things begin to change a bit when he meets back up with Lynn (Sondra Locke) who apologizes for her behavior from before and wants to rekindle their romance. Philo resists at first, but eventually the two get back together and she even moves-in with him in a spare room, but pressure mounts when fight handicapper Jack Beckman (Harry Guardino) comes-up with the idea of pairing Philo with Jack Wilson (William Smith), whose fighting skills mixes both martial arts and boxing. Jack figures it would be a match that would generate much betting interest and uses his men and money to convince Philo to take part in it. While Philo does initially agree he eventually backs out due to pressure from Lynn as she feels it’s too dangerous, but Jack, who has Mafia money riding on the fight, won’t take no for an answer and kidnaps Lynn in an effort to get Philo to reconsider. 

This is one of those sequels that’s a vast improvement over the first and much of the credit goes to Stanford Sherman, who wrote over 18 episodes for the 60’s ‘Batman’ TV-show and shows a good knack for balancing campy humor with interesting action. He’s also able to tie-in everything that goes on, so it doesn’t come off like a disconnected mess like with the first installment that had characters and situations coming-out of nowhere that wasn’t cohesive. Here each character has a purpose and everything that happens has a reason and connects with the main theme making for a much slicker production even when some of it gets silly.

Much more attention goes to the ape here though it’s not the same one as in the first film. That one was named Manis who was deemed to have grown too big for the part, so he got replaced by Buddha who has some amusing segments with his best moments coming when he tears up some cars, including one being driven by a bad guy, played by Michael Cavanaugh, as he’s trying to get away and another scene where he wears a dress and then ‘flashes’ an amorous hotel owner. However, in a book by Jane Goodall entitled ‘Visions of Caliban’ it was asserted that Buddha was badly beaten by his owner during the production after he stole some doughnuts on the set and was eventually clubbed to death forcing them to bring in a third ape named C.J. to do the publicity tour for the movie after filming had wrapped. 

Like in the first one the movie also features a lot of bare-knuckle brawls though these aren’t quite as interesting since Clint wins every one of them, so there’s never any tension. To keep it realistic, and give it better balance, they should’ve had him lose one, possible in humiliating style, and the rest of the movie could’ve been having him trying to defend his title and the audience would’ve been more emotionally invested in seeing him do it.  Would’ve been nice too had they not implemented that annoying punch sound effect that to me puts the fight at a cartoon level and I wished more movies from the period did it like The Whole Shootin’ Match, which didn’t feel the need to have that effect put in and thus actually made the fighting grittier and more intense in the process. 

While the film is way too long, there’s no reason for a runtime of 2-hours with such a slight and goofy plot, which should’ve have not been more than 85-minutes. However, it saves itself with some genuinely inspired moments including when real-life couple Logan and Anne Ramsey, who play a traveling husband and wife who stay in the hotel room next to the two apes whose noisy love making turn them on as does Clint and Sondra in adjacent room while Ruth and the elderly hotel clerk, played by Peter Hobbs, also make it in the motel office, I found to be quite amusing and almost worth the price of admission. The climactic bout between Clint and Smith and the way it galvanizes people from all over to witness it and bet money on it, including the Black Widow biker gang, who survive a ‘taring’ earlier, is good fun making it worth checking out on a slow night. 

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: December 17, 1980

Runtime: 1 Hour 56 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Buddy Van Horn

Studio: Warner Brothers

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, YouTube

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Every Which Way But Loose (1978)

Posted on February 6, 2025 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: A bare-knuckle brawler.

Philo (Clint Eastwood) is a truck driver still living with his mother (Ruth Gordon) and who compensates his income with bare-knuckle fights where people can make bets either on, or against him. He also travels around with an orangutan named Clyde whom he won as compensation for one of his fights. One day while waiting in his pick-up at a red light a biker gang known as The Black Widows and led by Cholla (John Quade) pull up beside them and begin harassing the ape. This creates a confrontation, and the bikers seek a vendetta on Philo determined to challenge him to a fight and begin stalking him until he agrees. Philo is also being chased by Putnam (Gregory Walcott), a cop upset at Philo over a misunderstanding that occurred while the two were in a bar. Meanwhile Philo is also trying to find Lynn (Sandra Locke) a singer he fell for who moved away to Colorado with her boyfriend, but Philo travels there in an attempt to find her and win her back, but Putnam and the Black Widows are in hot pursuit. 

The script is the product of Jeremy Joe Kronsberg, who after watching Smokey and the Bandit, became ‘inspired’ to write this one and was convinced it would make the perfect follow-up vehicle for star Burt Reynolds. However, when he shopped it around to the studios, they all rejected it, so he decided to send it off to Clint Eastwood’s secretary in the hopes that Clint, being good friends with Burt, would show him the script and convince him to do it. Instead to everyone’s surprise Clint, who was looking to broaden his appeal, decided to take on the starring duties himself and even cast Kronsberg as one of the biker gang members.

Many of those close to Clint thought it was a bad career move, and the critics savaged the film upon its initial release, but at the box office, which is what really counts, it did very well and became one of the highest grossing films of Eastwood’s career. A major reason for this is its rural appeal where everyone is essentially a redneck and white collar, college educated suburbanites just don’t exist. Instead, one’s social standing hinges on how much they down at the bar and whom they beat-up, which helps create a strong and surreal atmosphere. Initially though with this type of mentality I thought the setting should’ve been Texas and not California as when most people think of Cali they connect it with rich Hollywood stars and Malibu mansions when in reality that’s only a portion of the state and on the east end it’s much more rustic with a far more blue collar attitude and the movie does a good job of exposing this. 

It’s fun to see Eastwood not taking himself so seriously and being laid-back even smiling versus having him constantly look at everybody with his patented squinty-eyed stare. In support I though Ruth Gordon was great. Usually she plays ditzy old dames, but here she’s crusty and ornery and the segment where this ‘vulnerable old woman’ single-handedly shoots-up the biker gang when they invade her property is the movie’s highpoint. Bevery D’Angelo quite good too playing a free-spirited flower child named Echo. While she doesn’t have anything funny to say it’s nice having a character who’s quiet and subdued to help balance all the other wackiness. 

The script though is in desperate search for a story that never really transpires. Too much hinges on random events strung together by the thinnest of threads versus being connected by actual motivations and momentum. Having Eastwood, a tall and intimidating looking guy, constantly getting harassed for no reason, doesn’t make a lot of sense. The biker gang should’ve hounded him because they were hired by someone who lost to him in a fight and was bitter about it and the cop could’ve been hassling him because he lost a bet on one of his fights and thus wanted some compensation. While these may not be deep and profound motives at least they give a reason for what’s happening versus having things strung together by a lot of disconnected events that come out of nowhere. 

Spoiler Alert!

Sondra Locke though almost saves it. Her hyper and sarcastic personality makes for a nice contrast to Eastwood’s, and I liked how he pursues her as a love interest only to ultimately realize that she’s a psycho and he’d be better off without her. Most other movies have the concept that ‘lover conquers all’ and you’re better off with someone, even if they’re seriously flawed, than without, so having this movie take the alternative viewpoint is a refreshing change of pace and thus deserves some credit. 

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: December 20, 1978

Runtime: 1 Hour 55 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: James Fargo

Studio: Warner Brothers

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, YouTube

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Posted in 70's Movies, Campy Comedy, Movies Based on Songs, Road Movies

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Breezy (1973)

Posted on May 13, 2019 | 6 comments

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Hippie falls or businessman.

Edith Alice ‘Breezy’ Breezerman (Kay Lenz) lives the life of a hippie after losing both her parents to a car accident years earlier. Her transient lifestyle consists of one-night-stands and hitching rides from strangers. One day she jumps into a car owned by Frank Harmon (William Holden). Frank is a middle-aged man who went through a tumultuous divorce years earlier and isn’t interested in getting into a relationship especially with someone young enough to be his daughter and yet Breezy’s carefree ways begin to grow on him and despite his reluctance the two slowly form a bond.

The script was written by Jo Heims who also penned Clint Eastwood’s earlier hit Play Misty for Me. Originally she wanted Clint to play the part of Frank, but he felt he was too young for the role and decided he would direct instead although you can still spot him for a brief second leaning against a wooden rail during a scene at a boardwalk. Unfortunately his fan base  was expecting to see more of an action or western flick and not some laid-back counter-culture love story and much of his following gave it a-bad-word-of-mouth to others who then stayed away. After some bad reviews from an initial screening the studio decided to shelve it for a year before finally releasing it to select theaters with very little promotion, which caused it to tank at the box office, but this is definitely a movie that deserves a second look.

One of the things that I liked is that it tackles the controversial subject of relationships with a wide age difference something that is still sometimes considered ‘gross’ even by otherwise liberal minded people today. Yet the subject gets examined in a refreshingly non exploitative way where it is actually the man who is reluctant to get involved and even at one point outright rejects her while she continues to pursue it convinced that despite one of them ‘being on this planet a little bit longer than the other’ they still have the same wants and needs.

The film like its title has a nice ‘breezy’ pace too that reflects its Bay area setting quite well and allows the viewer to get to know the characters and their interpersonal dynamics without ever feeling that it gets rushed or is forced. The introspective script makes many key insights particularly with the Holden character and how his ‘old school’ upbringing and fear of being judged by others makes him hesitant to get involved despite the strong feelings that he has for her.

Eastwood shows astute direction as well. I particularly liked the scene where Holden writes down the phone number from a lady guest and then the camera follows the woman out of the house and remains focused on her through the front window as she gets into a cab while we also see the back of Holden’s hand who crumples up the piece of paper with the phone number on it and throws it into an ashtray, which shows us his disinterest in her visually without having it verbally explained and is a hallmark of good filmmaking.

The motivations for Breezy’s character particularly the reasons for why she falls so quickly for Holden isn’t clear. There is also a scene where Holden puts an injured dog that he rescued from the side of the road into his car, but it never shows what he did with it. Then an hour later that same dog comes back into play as we realize he had taken it to a vet., but I felt that segment should’ve been shown since it ends up being integral to the story otherwise this is a really well made sleeper looking to find new fans who can appreciate an intelligently done romance.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: November 18, 1973

Runtime: 1 Hour 46 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Clint Eastwood

Studio: Universal

Available: DVD, Blu-ray (Region B), Amazon Video, YouTube

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Posted in 70's Movies, Drama, Movies with Nudity, Romance

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Bronco Billy (1980)

Posted on December 27, 2018 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Rich lady and cowboy.

Bronco Billy (Clint Eastwood) is an aging modern-day cowboy who runs a traveling wild west show that is no longer attracting customers and making it hard for him to pay his employees. While at a gas station he meets Antoinette (Sondra Locke) a rich heiress with a haughty attitude who has just gotten dumped by her husband (Geoffrey Lewis) who also absconded with all of her money. Billy decides to hire her onto his show despite the fact that her presence causes animosity amongst the rest of his crew.

After Locke’s recent death, one person on Twitter, I don’t remember who, stated that this was the ‘greatest movie ever made’ and I’m not sure if he was joking or not, but if he wasn’t then I adamantly must disagree.  The film does start out okay and even has a certain charm to it, but the story and situations get too exaggerated until it’s impossible to take any of it seriously while also being too hokey to find funny.

The biggest logic gaps occur during the story thread dealing with Lewis being convinced to lie to the authorities that he killed Locke even though he really didn’t, so that he can get his share of her inheritance once he gets out. He’s told that if he pleads insanity that he will be ‘guaranteed’ to be released in only 3 years, but when in the history of the world has this ever happened and who would ever be dumb enough to believe it?  And that staying at a mental hospital is ‘no big deal’ and almost like a ‘resort’, which describes no mental hospital that I’ve ever head of.  There’s also no attempt by the police, or at least none is ever shown, to investigate the case to make sure Locke really has been murdered and try and retrieve her body.

The proverbial barroom brawl segment (must every western-themed film have this?) that occurs in the middle is as cliched and silly as it sounds and puts the whole rest of the film on a very cartoonish level. What’s even dumber is that during the brawl Locke goes outside to the parking lot where she gets accosted by two men, but just before they’re able to assault her Eastwood and his buddies magically appear to save her, but how could they have no known that she was in trouble when just a minute before they were shown taking part in the wild ruckus inside?

Locke’s rich-bitch personality is too much of a caricature and quickly becomes irritating to the point that when she eventually does soften, which takes awhile, it still doesn’t help. Having her able to shoot a pistol just as well as Billy seems out of character and never sufficiently explained. It would’ve been funnier had her dainty, cushy lifestyle been challenged more by throwing her into a rugged experience that she wasn’t used to, which doesn’t get played-up half as much as it could’ve or should’ve.

Eastwood’s character isn’t likable either. I would hate working for somebody that couldn’t pay me fore several months straight nor not allowing his employees to ad-lib any of their lines that he writes for them during the western skits that they put on even though people work better in their jobs when their allowed to have creativity and leeway in what they do and how they do it.

Why he would immediately fall head-over-heels for this woman is a mystery as Locke is only average in the looks department and her arrogant attitude is such an extreme turn-off that just about any guy would quickly dump her and never look back instead of continually pursuing her like Billy pretty much does here. Having them consummate their relationship should’ve only occurred at the very end while displaying much more of their personality clashes, which gets underplayed.

The scene where Billy and his gang try to hold-up a train is really funny and I enjoyed the inspired casting of having Woodrow Parfrey, who usually plays weirdo types, being cast as the head of the mental hospital, but other than that I felt the film was too predictable. You know where it’s headed right from the start and the theme of the old-fashioned, rugged individualist fighting more modern-day sensibilities has been done in so many other Eastwood films that here it becomes redundant.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Release: June 11, 1980

Runtime: 1 Hour 56 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Clint Eastwood

Studio: Warner Brothers

Available: DVD, Amazon Video, YouTube

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Posted in 80's Movies, Campy Comedy, Road Movies, Romance

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Joe Kidd (1972)

Posted on August 28, 2015 | Leave a comment

joe kidd

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Bounty hunter tracks revolutionary.

Joe Kidd (Clint Eastwood) is a bounty hunter sitting in jail on trumped up charges. As he is about to have his case heard the courthouse is invaded by Luis Chama (John Saxon) and his band of Mexican revolutionaries who are angered that their U.S. land claims have been denied. They threaten a full scale war against the American government and suddenly Kidd finds himself in the middle when powerful landowner Frank Harlan (Robert Duvall) wants to use Kidd’s abilities to track Chama down so that he can kill him before he can ferment any more unrest. Kidd and Frank do not like each other, but Kidd reluctantly goes along while planning at some point to stop Frank and his men before they can do anymore harm.

If there is one thing to take from this film it is Duvall’s performance. This is the movie where he really came into his own and his career transitioned from small character parts and guest spots in TV-shows to an all-around dynamic lead actor. His presence here is commanding and he plays the bad guy with such zeal that it ends up taking over the entire picture while smothering the usually reliable Eastwood until he and his character become bland and transparent.

Unfortunately the script written by Elmore Leonard cannot match the same energy or creativity. It starts out well and has all the rugged ingredients one expects from a good western and it’s even directed by John Sturges who’s noted for putting together great action flicks, but unfortunately at some point it goes flat and this is mainly because there is not much of a second or third act. The scenario itself is too predictable and gets played out in a mechanical, by-the-numbers fashion. It is also devoid of much action. The part where Kidd uses his telescope rifle to pick off a shooter at long range that the others can’t is okay, but the scene where he derails a train and sends it crashing through a saloon seems implausible and not as exciting to see as it may sound.

I enjoyed Kidd’s antagonistic relationship with Lamarr (Don Stroud) who is one of Harlan’s men and a young, long haired cocksure guy that immediately gets a vendetta against the more stoic Kidd, which adds some zest, but then the film squashes it too soon by having Kidd kill Lamarr in a rather unimaginative and uneventful way. In fact the whole climactic finish works in the same way with Kidd mechanically knocking off each of Harlan’s men in a fashion similar to what Gary Cooper did to the bad guys in High Noon, which was a far better movie. Kidd’s final shootout with Harlan is a particular letdown and should’ve been played out more while only helping to cement this as one of Eastwood’s weakest and more forgettable westerns that he has done.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: July 14, 1972

Runtime: 1Hour 28Minutes

Rated PG

Director: John Sturges

Studio: Universal

Available: VHS, DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 70's Movies, Movies with a rural setting, Westerns

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