Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Superb Eastwood, 3 Dec 2008
In one of his less well known roles Clint Eastwood again shows that he is always prepared to do the unexpected with his acting. He plays Wes Block, a cop who is trying to catch a serial killer with liking for kinky sex.
The trouble for Wes is that so does he, and in fact he frequents the same places and meets the same women as the killer. Genevieve Bujold plays the rape counsellor who becomes involved with Wes and theres a noteably good performance from Clint Eastwood's daughter who plays one of Wes's two daughters in the film.
Its a brave performance from Eastwood and the whole film is really quite an edgy thriller. From memory I was convinced Eastwood directed this, but seeing it again recently I realised he didn't. So credit to the actual director who did a fine job.
Eastwood was 54 when this was made. If I can be as good shape as he was at that age I'll be a very happy man!
Why this isn't available on region 2 seperately I don't know, as its a better film than most of the Dirty Harry sequels. No doubt it'll be reissued again eventually. Highly recommended.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Dark, Menacing, and Ambiguous, 3 Aug 2007
To me, this film is even more impressive today than it was when I first saw it. Frankly, when seeing it 20 years ago, I was thrown off-balance by the character whom Eastwood plays, Wes Block, a police detective in New Orleans. He pursues a serial killer of prostitutes, a psychopath with whom he seems to share similar psycho-sexual preoccupations. Presumably this was a risky part for Eastwood to take on. Under skillful but deferential direction by Richard Tuggle, he explores with great skill certain depraved tendencies within himself which were much more shocking in 1984 than they seem to be, regrettably, two decades later. Block's personal situation is complicated even more by the fact that he a single parent, raising two daughters. It is also important to remember that his personal conduct creates the risk of compromising his professional integrity as a law enforcement officer. For these and other reasons, Block is a much more enigmatic character than, for example, Harry ("what you see is what you get") Callahan.
In the role of Beryl Thibodeaux, Genevieve Bujold portrays a criminal psychologist who is attracted to Block as they work together even as she begins to sense and then contend with at least some of the demons which torment him. So much of this film occurs (both literally and symbolically) in darkness. Even a trained professional such as Thibodeaux is frustrated in her attempts to understand someone for whom she feels sincere affection. Special credit should be given to Bruce Surtees for superb cinematography which is coordinated seamlessly with the often depressing storyline. He had worked with Eastwood in previous films which include Dirty Harry (1971), Play Misty for Me (also 1971), Pale Rider (1975), and The Outlaw Josie Wales (1976). The supporting cast is excellent, notably Eastwood's own daughter Alison who plays Amanda Block in the film, and Dan Hadeya as Detective Molinari. Eventually, after the serial killer kidnaps Amanda, her distraught and enraged father pursues her to a riveting conclusion when....
Others are much better qualified than I to express this opinion but I think Wes Block is a character which begins a new transition for Eastwood the actor. Thereafter, the characters he plays tend to be of the "sadder but wiser" variety, much less self-assured, more fatalistic in their view of the world, skeptical and sometimes cynical, reluctant to trust anyone or anything, and are -- for me, therefore -- much more interesting. This is an especially upsetting film which has lost little (if any) of its dramatic impact. More than twenty years after its initial release and probably because I have become a grandfather, there are certain situations in Tightrope which are even more upsetting to me now than ever before.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Toughness with vulnerability, 16 Jul 2007
This is'nt an instalment in the Dirty Harry series, though Clint plays a tough cop with a vulnerability that is central to the film's premise. His character is on the trail of a sociopath, hell-bent on implicating Clint's character in a series of murders of women, who work in seedy establishments, in New Orleans. His character's realisation of the killer's motive, gives the second act a walls-closing-in kind of claustrophobia, that keeps you gripped to the end. One of Clint's best starring-roles in the early 80s.
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