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| Clint Eastwood walks the tightrope between right and wrong in Richard Tuggle's Tightrope |
Tightrope is an over-looked gem in Clint Eastwood's magnificent career as a filmmaker. In this case, Eastwood stars in the leading role, co-produced the film and was its ghost director, since its credited director Richard Tuggle (Escape From Alcatraz, screenwriter (1979)) was deemed too slow.
The film is about a New Orleans homicide detective by the name of Wes Block, who gets a rapist-killer on his hands. Trying to balance his heavy responsibilities with the case with his personal responsibility as the divorced father of two young daughters that he lives with, Block tears on his sense of self.
Tightrope is a dark sex thriller; more realistic and darker than Eastwood's five popular Dirty Harry films (1971-1988) and interesting for a variety of reasons, especially for those who are fans of Eastwood.
Though of course Eastwood played different characters in each movie, his 'cop character', (if we allow ourselves to talk of such a one), has developed immensely since Don Siegel's Coogan's Bluff (1968), wherein he was a rigidly conservative country cop who despised city manners and hippies and beat up as many of the slummers he could. Sixteen years later in Tightrope, Eastwood plays a city cop, who indulges in many of the same pleasures that his killer does: Block eagerly visits strip joints and cat-houses, for the case, but gets serviced there as well, and in one scene he even implies that he has homosexual experiences. That is a very far cry indeed from Coogan or 'Dirty' Harry Callahan for that matter.
The film's structure and serial killer topic has many similarities with the first, great Dirty Harry (1971), but is still a very different, less action-driven and mythical film. A shift in values and a mellowing has taken place in the time between the films, which suits Eastwood, and distinguishes Tightrope as a much more modern film than the others.
While the storyline shows maturity and realism, it also deals with sordidness, terrible sex murders and smut. There's no shortage of murders or darkness in Tightrope. It also isn't free from a bit of sensationalism in its taking its audience to the clubs and houses they may not be able to go to by themselves out in real life, but that doesn't weigh down on my judgment of the film.
As in many other instances, New Orleans is a great location for a crime film, and Tightrope also has a memorable, eerie scene in a warehouse with giant dolls.
Opposite Eastwood, Geneviève Bujold (Dead Ringers (1988)) has a great part, and really comes through as believable as the woman who makes a change for the better in Block, being an equal to him in some respects. Canadian Bujold was cast as Warner Brothers executives would not have Eastwood playing against his then partner Sondra Locke in any more films, (they had done 6 together.)
Clint Eastwood and Geneviève Bujold shares some great, real interest scenes in Tightrope
The details:
Eastwood's real-life daughter Alison Eastwood (Black & White (1999)), then 11 years old, plays his daughter in the film, and, unfortunately, it is clear already here that she doesn't have her father's acting talent.
Including her in the film brought Eastwood some unwanted press at the time, and it certainly is risqué casting. (SPOILER The girl gets attacked by the sex killer in the film.)
On the whole, Tightrope itself, - like its main character, - treads a fine line in its portrayal of violence against women, the use of prostitutes, murder and home life. I find that it succeeds with an unusual, bold portrait of how much can be contained in a single man.
That gets us back to Eastwood, whose film this is, if there's any justice in the world. He convincingly plays a complex character struggling with an increasingly desperate and infuriating search for a lunatic that has similarities with himself. These are time and again neatly emphasized in the photography, beginning with a match-cut between the two characters' shoes in the beginning of the film.
The film is satisfyingly framed with jazz-scored city shots, undoubtedly another one of jazz-loving Eastwood's ideas.
Tightrope is a must-watch for any fan of his, and a good thriller in general for everyone else.
Related reviews:
Clint Eastwood: A Fistful of Dollars (1964) or, Killer in a Poncho
Watch the great, a little bit kitschy, psychedelic trailer here
Budget: Unknown:
Box office: 48.1 mil. $ (only US)
= Probably a success
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Other great sex killer thrillers?
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