Clint Eastwood plays a tough cop from Arizona who's been sent to New York City to bring a prisoner (Don Stroud) back to face charges. However, when he arrives, the prisoner is in the infirmary and he must wait a short time to get him. When he finally does take the guy to the airport, he's jumped and beaten by David Doyle!!! Yes, THAT David Doyle!! The one from "Bridget Loves Bernie", "Charlie's Angels" and "Rugrats" (he played the voice of Grandpa). Of all the actors who you could imagine pummeling Clint Eastwood, about the only one LESS likely might be Paul Rubens or Billy Barty!! This alone is reason to see the film!
Well, Eastwood is not about to just return to Arizona empty handed and spends the rest of the movie searching throughout New York for the escaped scum-bag. And so, the cowboy-hatted Eastwood does the whole 'fish out of water' thing until he ultimately gets his man. Does it all seem a bit familiar? Well, apparently this film was the inspiration for the series "McCloud" just a couple years later.
While it's fun watching Eastwood, I really felt the whole 'New York is crazy' aspect of the movie was WAY overdone. Sure, New York City of 1968 wasn't exactly Heaven on Earth, but come on! The worst example is the insane probation officer (Susan Clark) who allows a degenerate to fondle her breast repeatedly--right there in the police station!! I wonder how many OTHER probation officers do this sort of thing? How about ZERO--especially since this is happening right in front of everyone AND she then scolds Eastwood when he stops this probationer!!! This entire scene made no sense whatsoever and apparently it was to illustrate what a sick place this city is. Yeah, right!! I think it just illustrated bad writing. And then, following this, Eastwood and Clark then become very chummy--perhaps he's assuming she'll let him do what the probationer was doing! Later, Clint walks into a super-freaky dance club--full of naked painted ladies, gay men, a FLYING naked lady and drugs. Once again, it all just seems way, way overdone. We GET that New York is a strange place--stop with the sledgehammer symbolism! I did not particularly like this film. I wanted to...but the writing was just dumb. It's not that I don't like Eastwood--he was great in almost all his other films and actually was fine here. But here, he's just saddled with cartoony supporting characters. No one in New York City makes any sense--none! How can you take a Dirty Harry-like character and STILL screw up the film?! Too much emphasis on the weird and confusing--particularly Clark's character who only gets more strange and confusing as the film progresses. In fact, I might be willing to nominate her for the worst supporting female character of the 1960s for this performance (this isn't hyperbole--I'm serious. She was THAT bad). Cool action, a neat character and a decent basic story idea just aren't enough to overcome bad writing and dumb characters.
Extremely overrated. My advice is to skip this one and go right to "Dirty Harry". Your brain will thank you for this.
Well, Eastwood is not about to just return to Arizona empty handed and spends the rest of the movie searching throughout New York for the escaped scum-bag. And so, the cowboy-hatted Eastwood does the whole 'fish out of water' thing until he ultimately gets his man. Does it all seem a bit familiar? Well, apparently this film was the inspiration for the series "McCloud" just a couple years later.
While it's fun watching Eastwood, I really felt the whole 'New York is crazy' aspect of the movie was WAY overdone. Sure, New York City of 1968 wasn't exactly Heaven on Earth, but come on! The worst example is the insane probation officer (Susan Clark) who allows a degenerate to fondle her breast repeatedly--right there in the police station!! I wonder how many OTHER probation officers do this sort of thing? How about ZERO--especially since this is happening right in front of everyone AND she then scolds Eastwood when he stops this probationer!!! This entire scene made no sense whatsoever and apparently it was to illustrate what a sick place this city is. Yeah, right!! I think it just illustrated bad writing. And then, following this, Eastwood and Clark then become very chummy--perhaps he's assuming she'll let him do what the probationer was doing! Later, Clint walks into a super-freaky dance club--full of naked painted ladies, gay men, a FLYING naked lady and drugs. Once again, it all just seems way, way overdone. We GET that New York is a strange place--stop with the sledgehammer symbolism! I did not particularly like this film. I wanted to...but the writing was just dumb. It's not that I don't like Eastwood--he was great in almost all his other films and actually was fine here. But here, he's just saddled with cartoony supporting characters. No one in New York City makes any sense--none! How can you take a Dirty Harry-like character and STILL screw up the film?! Too much emphasis on the weird and confusing--particularly Clark's character who only gets more strange and confusing as the film progresses. In fact, I might be willing to nominate her for the worst supporting female character of the 1960s for this performance (this isn't hyperbole--I'm serious. She was THAT bad). Cool action, a neat character and a decent basic story idea just aren't enough to overcome bad writing and dumb characters.
Extremely overrated. My advice is to skip this one and go right to "Dirty Harry". Your brain will thank you for this.