Film Summary DCCXXXIX (The Gauntlet)


You ever watch a movie where you look at the premise and you think ''this could be really good''.
All the right elements are there.
Solid actors, a good setup. Decent suspense and a screenplay which is arguably predictable, but it has enough flare that it keeps you interested regardless.
A feel good action movie if you will.

But than you you watch the whole thing and the film dedicates more time to fulfilling some sort of bullet quota.
Like this is one of the biggest shootout movies I've ever seen.
Not once, but at least four different time, various cops will gather together to blow the ever-living hell out of something.
It might be a car, it might be a bus, it could be a house.
But it's going to take up a ton of time.

Time that could have been dedicated to better characters or maybe putting a bit more effort into our villains so we understand what's going on with them.
Maybe actually introducing the mafia.
This whole movie is supposed to have a mafia angle and all we get her a couple of Hitman. You could have removed them all together and you would have lost nothing.

Now I say all of this like it's a bad thing.
And it's really not.
It's just another offshoot Dirty Harry kind of movie. Only Clint Eastwood's involved in one case and he has to make do with a random woman who he inevitably learns to ''respect''.
There's also a romance subplot that's kind of subpar.
It's there for formula but it really doesn't have to be.
Oh the ending sucks.
This whole movie is about 20 minutes too long and they somehow rushed through the entire ending.

Should have had more pay off with the main villain.
But whatever no one's going to care.
This is the definition of a 70s popular Hollywood film. I don't think anyone was meant to really be talking about it after 3 years, let alone 30.

Comments