The Gauntlet (1977)

Eastwood as an alcoholized no-nonsense cop? That hates authorities and paperworks? In the seventies? How original.

And it is fun to see what you could get away with of discrimination at that age. All the cops are men, and Eastwood is most happy to slap his female prisoner around and applying simple rules "If you mess around, I'll put the cuffs on you, if you talk dirty, I'll gag you and if you try to run, I'll shoot you". You know he will (and he does), you know it's a blatant abuse of power... and still! Both entertaining and cool! Eastwood really could get away with anything those days.

Sondra Locke was dating Eastwood at this point, and she is better with facial expressions than she is with her lines. She does bring out the true scumbag in Eastwood, though, so I suppose there is chemistry. Apart from them, most people are to be regarded as extras, apart from the legendary Pat Hingle. Unfortunately, his character is given nothing to work with and should have been either scrubbed or seriously altered.

As always, Lalo Schifrin provides the score for Eastwood's 70's-flick, and though scarce, it is very good. If you like 70's jazz.

Eastwood seems to want every shooting-scene to be extremely thorough and so they use 2000 bullets when 10 would suffice. I suppose it seemed dramatic at the time. But for the end game it really is cool. Clint Eastwood driving a rigged bus through Phoenix with the entire Phoenix P.D. lined up to shoot at him on the way. Very cool.

The story has the same problem as the film. There are some clever thoughts here and there, but triviality and boredom lurks just behind it. Some fun set pieces, a few good scenes, but all in all not very believable nor enticing.

As a way of securing Eastwood's reputation as the most macho actor of his generation, this'll do. As a film, it's very mediocre.

5/10