The Gauntlet (1977) Warner Bros./Action RT: 111 minutes Rated R (strong violence including rape, language, nudity, sexual references, alcohol abuse) Director: Clint Eastwood Screenplay: Michael Butler and Dennis Shryack Music: Jerry Fielding Cinematography: Rexford L. Metz Release date: December 21, 1977 (US) Cast: Clint Eastwood, Sondra Locke, Pat Hingle, William Prince, Bill McKinney, Michael Cavanaugh, Carole Cook, Mara Corday, Doug McGrath, Jeff Morris, Samantha Doane, Roy Jenson, Dan Vadis, Carver Barnes. Box Office: $26.4M (US)
Rating: ***
Although they’re both played by Clint Eastwood, cops Harry Callahan and Ben Shockley are as different as night and day. Dirty Harry cares enough about the law to thumb his nose at the book of rules he’s supposed to play by in order to catch the bad guys. Shockley doesn’t even bother to glance at the cover. Besides, it’s too big a book to fit inside the bottle he climbed into at some point in his career. He’s the dubious hero of The Gauntlet, a preposterous actioner that fits comfortably into the “good not great” category of Eastwood flicks. As director, Eastwood balances exciting action scenes against a sketchy plot involving dirty cops and the Mafia.
Shockley, a burnt-out alcoholic who approaches his job with indifference, gets assigned witness detail by his new commanding officer Blakelock (Prince, Assassination). He’s to go to Las Vegas and retrieve a “nothing witness” to testify in a “nothing trial”. Said witness is Augusta “Gus” Mally (Locke, The Outlaw Josey Wales), a hooker who isn’t the most cooperative person in the world. In fact, she’s a royal pain in the ass. She has incriminating information on somebody important; it’s pertinent to the trial. It seems like a simple enough task, right? WRONG! Is it ever simple?
Gus is too terrified to even leave her cell. She tries to warn Shockley off claiming he’ll be killed too if he tries to carry out his assignment. Of course, he’s not having any of it. That is, until he finds out the Mob has placed odds on Gus making it to Phoenix alive. Undeterred but concerned, he tries to secret her away from the police station only for the bad guys to make their first of several attempts on their lives. On top of that, the cops are after them too. Determined to buck the odds, Shockley goes above and beyond the call of duty in his efforts to deliver the witness alive.
The Gauntlet contains a few bravura action sequences like the scene where the entire Las Vegas police force converges on Gus’s house and cuts loose with a barrage of bullets that literally brings the house down. There’s a chase where a helicopter fires on them on a motorcycle. The climax, in which Shockley and Gus drive to the courthouse in an armored bus through a gauntlet of cops firing on them, is cool. Their ordeal also includes a run-in with a vicious gang of bikers that ends with Shockley appropriating one of their motorcycles.
The relationship between Shockley and Gus follows a familiar trajectory. They start out hating each other. It, of course, turns into something else as the movie progresses. I’d believe it more if Locke wasn’t such a horrible actress. She can’t act her way out of a wet paper bag. That she was dating Eastwood at the time explains why she got the part. It’s too bad because her character is interesting. Gus is no dumb broad. She’s a college graduate who easily holds her own against a redneck cop making lewd remarks. In the hands of a better actress, she’d be a great match/foil for Eastwood’s character. We’re so used to seeing the actor play heroic-type characters; it’s a shock to the system when he plays one like Shockley who isn’t so heroic. He goes a good job in the role. The problem is his character isn’t afforded any depth. What brought him to the state he’s in? We never find out.
Shallow characterization isn’t the movie’s only problem. The pacing is uneven. It has a few slow stretches. Due to the Law of Economy of Characters, it’s not hard picking out the bad guy(s) on the police force. As such, we cringe when Shockley’s old partner (Hingle, Sudden Impact) takes crucial information to a person we know is corrupt. If we can see it, why can’t he? BTW, given certain conventions of the genre, you can probably guess what happens to him before the end credits roll.
While The Gauntlet isn’t exactly a shining moment for Eastwood as an actor or director, it’s a reasonably entertaining action flick with more gunfire than some Civil War battles. Not a minute of it is even remotely believable. It’s dumb; it’s junk food for the brain. It’s a decent Saturday night action movie.
