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TightRope is a very accurate name for this picture, the most interesting aspect of which is Eastwood's attempts to balance his duties as a responsible and loving father with his taste for deviant sex. This latter he shares with the serial killer he is pursuing. The killer has a penchant for strangling his victims with ribbons which I guess is another meaning for "tight rope".

Eastwood's character is very well fleshed out and his desire to provide a safe and normal home life for his daughters and later to establish a relationship with a rape defence adviser he is attracted to, is very believable. While this is happening, he is drawn deeper and deeper into the dark world of bondage and sado-masochism and there is for a long time some doubt as to which way he will fall and even that he may know more about the killings than he admits.

All this is very compellingly handled.

Unfortunately the villain is straight out of central casting. A one-dimensional cardboard cut-out who the film makers attempt to give some mystery to by having him wear masks. Yawn. Unlike Eastwood, this villain is poorly drawn and apart from an uncharacteristic appearance at the start, is completely silent. He just swans around in the shadows a-la the phantom of the opera and has little of the sense of personality even of Scorpio in Dirty Harry.

There is no real reason why he should be masked, actually, since he is an undistinguished looking character, and stalking around with an assortment of facial coverings is more likely to draw attention to himself if anything. One must believe that this oddly disguised person can enter and leave buildings (such as brothels - highly security conscious in the real world) without anyone noticing. Or perhaps he goes in unmasked and whips out his disguise later? Who knows? If the latter, why bother with the disguise at all? It certainly has not been thought out and is a very cheap attempt to create a sense of intrigue and danger.

Its a pity because the constant appearance of this silly villain actually detracts from the menace and darkness of this film. Without him, there would be real doubt as to whether Eastwood was really the killer himself, for instance. I do not think I give anything away in saying this, since the clunking villain is seen stalking Eastwood from quite early on, hovering behind him or looking in the skylight, so much so that you feel like shouting "He's behind you!" in a pantomime sort of way.

Other details do not ring true, such as Eastwood telling a young male hooker to go to a warehouse to be paid by the killer then going there himself to find (surprise! Surprise!) the hooker hanging by his neck. Cheap and unrealistic writing like this add to the schlock horror feel.

All this leads to a routine and unnecessarily gory finale. However, a touching moment with his girlfriend shows that the film makers do understand subtlety.

...in a dark and unsettling psychological thriller. Directed by Clint's protégé Richard Tuggle (who wrote the screenplay to the earlier Siegel-Eastwood classic ESCAPE FROM ALCATRAZ (1979), the film's first half is uncertain and suffers from clichéd (albeit well staged and visualised) New Orleans locations - shady whorehouse dives, red light tinged bars and over officious police procedural rooms and locker-room banter.

The plot itself is functional but nothing special: a serial killer with a penchant for young, pretty blondes, is terrorising the city by disposing of prostitutes by strangling them and dumping the bodies all over the city. The twist in TIGHTROPE is that the killer is also dogging the footsteps of kinky cop Detective Wes Block (Eastwood), a lonely divorcée with two young children. Block eases off the shackles of a tough day job by frequenting the very same sleazy dives that his thoroughly unpleasant nemesis does.

A predictable game of cat and mouse ensues, but the film's stock film noir origins are transcended by Eastwood's continual playing with his own star status and by a very interesting exploration of his character's private obsessions and genuinely touching relationship with his two young daughters. Special mention here for real-life daughter Alison Eastwood, quite superb as the older and more perceptive girl, who clearly suspects her troubled father is up to more than just "looking for something" on his late night travels through New Orleans's seamier districts.

The more conventional opening section of TIGHTROPE is distinctly misleading, largely because about half way through, the film's most interesting character (played by the truly excellent GENEVIEVE BUJOLD) comes much more to the fore. As the feisty and fiercely intelligent Rape Crisis Center head Beryl Thibodeaux (nice use of Bujold's French-Canadian heritage here for a movie set in New Orleans!) Bujold's sharp dialogue exchanges with ultra macho Detective Wes Block-Clint Eastwood are a constant joy, and, of course, edge us deeper into film noir territory as Block's kinky sexual practise and failed marriage become the focus of the investigation.

Tuggle does a generally excellent job of keeping the material visually interesting, although he pays less attention to the minor characters, wasting a great character actor like Dan Hedaya for the role of Block's sidekick on the investigation. Overall though, this is an underrated film in the Eastwood canon and worthy of your attention. It's a slick genre piece with a surprising ability to probe the areas of Eastwood's star persona not normally explored in the Dirty Harry series.

Inner darkness is out of control in this thriller set in New Orleans. A veteran cop(Clint Eastwood)is put in peril when evidence links him to the serial murders he is investigating. Genevieve Bujold co-stars. Twelve year old Alison Eastwood plays one of the cop's two daughters, and surprisingly holds her own. This shady thriller is worth your time. The pace is a little slow, but very intense. Some pretty cool sets and mellow jazz. Don't get too relaxed.

TIGHTROPE is a decent, though not entirely flawless, dramatic thriller. Clint stars as a hard-nosed detective (does he play any other kind?) trying to figure out who's behind a string of murders in New Orleans. But these aren't just any murders, as the female victims were all part of the wonderful world of kinky sex. Our hero's mean squint gets even squintier when it becomes obvious the women are being targeted because of their kinky relations with him.

Released in 1984, TIGHTROPE was a reasonable success in terms of revenue and critical acclaim. Maybe you just had to see it when it first came out, because watching it today, it seems like a fairly formulaic cop thriller. That doesn't mean it's bad; far from it. It's reasonably paced, not entirely predictable and nicely buffered with some cute (sometimes hilarious) father-daughter moments (Clint's real-life offspring, Alison, plays one of his two girls). Add an extra star if you're a fan of the big C.

Clint Eastwood is a truly amazing man. More then just a mere actor, he has become one of our national icons. Even President Reagan quoted his famous line "make my day". In Tightrope, Eastwood really went out and took a chance playing a cop, but not like Dirty Harry. A movie critic who reviewed the film commented that Eastwood had really grown as an actor and that maybe we should call him Redwood! Wes Block is a troubled single father who is really human with human frailties. He is drawn into a seamy murder investigation, but in doing so it is like he is looking into the dark tormented mirror of his own troubled soul. Every time a prostitute is murdered, it seems like it is one that he was just with. Watching this troubling film, there were more then a few occasions that I wondered if Clint was going to be revealed as the true killer in the end! It was a chilling thought to me watching this portrayal of a cop on the edge and wondering what would happen to push him over. Clint was finally nominated for an Academy award for best actor for Unforgiven, but this to me is one of the best "acting" jobs that he ever did. His real life daughter Allison plays his daughter in this movie and does a fine job, just like his son Kyle did in Honkeytonk Man. Genevieve Bujold gives a wonderful performance as the rape counselor that he falls for. She is a wonderful actress and more then holds her own. She was in my favorite Disney film The Last Flight Of Noah's Ark. Eastwood usually directs himself on screen, but in this case Richard Tuggle (who worked with Clint in Escape From Alcatraz) does a commendable job with the direction and the screenplay. The most disturbing part is where Eastwood tears a room apart in a fit of rage when he realizes what he has become. In a sense, he is no better then the pervert he hunts. Its like the dream scene where he is attacking the woman he loves. The ending of the film is like Dirty Harry where he finally gets the bad guy, I guess they cop out in the end, but Eastwood showed a lot of daring and guts when he took on this challenging role and he really rose to the occasion in my view. However, I would rather see him as Dirty Harry or No Name.

"Tightrope" is indicative of how veteran star Clint Eastwood has so often been willing to take chances with his film vehicles. Here Clint plays Wes Block, a New Orleans detective investigating the case of a sexual predator. The case gets more personal when both cop and killer realize that they're not so different. Wes, you see, does like to frequent after hours joints, and he's a known customer to some French Quarter ladies.

While not altogether successful - it lacks the style and tension to make it something truly special - it is, at the least, a fairly interesting character study, of a character who's not squeaky clean. We see Wes' happy home life - he's a single father to two girls, and owner of several dogs - contrasting with the less appealing aspects of his existence. Writer / director Richard Tuggle, who'd scripted the earlier Clint vehicle "Escape from Alcatraz", does his best to give us a film that attempts to take a look at the "dark within all of us". There's even a line to that effect, spoken by a minor character played by Janet MacLachlan.

We do see the psycho (character actor Marco St. John, "Friday the 13th: A New Beginning", "Thelma & Louise") in the act of stalking a woman right from the get go, so there's no mystery about what he looks like. That does put a crimp in the suspense.

Clint does well in this unconventional hero role, doing solid work as always. He co-stars with his real life daughter Alison, and Jennifer Beck, as his kids, the typically excellent Dan Hedaya as his partner, and Genevieve Bujold as a tough talking counsellor at a rape centre, who naturally places herself in harms' way by becoming involved with Wes.

Where the film is its strongest is in its depiction of N.O., capturing the night life in an American city known for its atmosphere.

Not a great film by any means, but worth a look for Clint fans.

Seven out of 10.

When Clint Eastwood was making his Dirty Harry films we never did get to see too much of the private life of Harry Callahan. In Tightrope playing New Orleans detective Wes Block that lack is more than made up for.

Clint's a family man in this one raising two small girls one of them played by his real life daughter Alyson on his own. But he's also indulging himself with a lot of prostitutes who can give him a bit of variety in turn-ons. But then these same women keep winding up dead in some terribly gruesome manners and of course Eastwood is starting to think he could be the ultimate target.

Director Richard Tuggle kept an even tighter rein on Clint's emotions than normal. Only at a certain dramatic point that I won't reveal do we see Clint revert to a Dirty Harry type character. In the end it's really the minute details found in forensic science that identifies the killer, but even with that the killer does not go down easy. In fact the final struggle between Eastwood and the perpetrator ends quite unforgettably.

Clint's leading lady is Genevieve Bujold who plays a rape crisis counselor who believes in a pro-active type of counseling with her victims. It's by no means certain these two will get together in the end though they both spark some interest in each other.

In Tightrope the accent is on suspense more than action, though when the action comes it explodes. There is by the way one very good reason for this killer to be so tough for the police to take down, but you'll have to see Tightrope for that. Clint Eastwood's legion of fans should be pleased enough with this film.

This movie was CHOCK FULL of clichés. The writer appeared to suffer from a real lack of imagination and freshness. Clint Eastwood plays a stoic cop who's divorced and can't take his daughters to the New Orleans Saints game because he keeps getting a beep about a new murder case. But he looks at a framed photo of his ex-wife at night, remembering the good times. How many clichés is that so far? Now let's throw in a scene where Clint questions a tattoo artist which leads him to a strip club. Then the killer starts to target Clint. Wow. If you like exploitation 80s flicks about serial killers and strip clubs, Charles Bronson made 3 or 4 movies of that genre better than this movie. At least Bronson knew he wasn't a great actor

Wes Block isn't really seedy in this movie. He ambles about and speaks tiredly, as if he were on blue bombers, but seediness implies defeat, and Clint Eastwood isn't actor enough to project such a state, anymore than John Wayne was (with the exception of his final scene in "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance"). The plot is full of holes but, if you can suspend disbelief effectively enough, it still works. Just don't think about it too hard.

And it suffers too from one cliché after another. How often have we seen the good guy and the bad guy mano a mano, and one of them has a pistol, and the second guy grabs the first guy's wrist and manages to keep the pistol from being pointed in his direction, and then the gun is knocked out of the first guy's hand and there's an insert of it skittering across the floor, to be followed after a few more tumbles by a shot the Western version of which Vladimir Nabokov referred to as "the pinned hand groping for the Bowie knife." It's night time and Block is searching his house for a hidden murderer, creeping through dark rooms, boards creaking underfoot, danger around every corner -- and he does not TURN ON THE LIGHTS. He carefully opens a closet door and a dog jumps out. That sort of thing.

Pauline Kael nailed the film for hiding the antagonist's face until the very end, since his appearance is unimportant anyway, but she was wrong to do so. The whole theme of the movie is the venerable one of the Doppelganger. The Doppelganger is somebody a lot like us, but representing only a part of our personalities, one we'd rather not acknowledge. In Poe's "William Wilson", the Doppelganger represented Wilson's conscience, or superego if you like. In Stevenson's "Doctor Jeykll and Mr. Hyde," the latter was clearly an id figure. In this film the villain is definitely in the second category. And Kael was mistaken to criticize Block's final confrontation with his Doppelganger on the railroad tracks because when Block rips off the killer's ski mask, it reveals a demonic face that is distorted as it howls with an infrahuman rage, and Block draws back, his own face twisted with the shock of recognition. It's the most powerful moment in the film.

There are other good moments as well, particularly Block in a paroxysm of anger, trashing his bedroom and cursing sulfurously after his daughter has been assaulted. Eastwood let himself go for that scene, suggesting the kettle boiling within the sleepwalker's body. The movie is mostly dark, even in the most unlikely settings, such as hospital rooms. It's filled with close ups of scary faces, many of them on plastic Mardi Gras floats. The director probably meant the warehouse scene to be no more than that, the sort of thing that might frighten children, but one wonders if he realized exactly how surreal that journey through the darkness and frozen turmoil of our subconscious really seemed on screen.

It's spooky, true, but maybe not for the reasons Eastwood intended. He gets good support from the other players here, and makes effective use of locations, except that on occasion they come to take on a tourist's eye view of the Crescent City. The Mardi Gras scene looks shot on the cheap. When was the last time a movie was set in a New Orleans that didn't have a Mardi Gras going on? "Panic in the Streets"?

"Tightrope" could have been a fascinating character study. Eastwood plays a somewhat kinky cop who has almost nothing in common with Dirty Harry; he is a much more believable character here, and his performance is superb. Unfortunately, the direction lacks the necessary vigor - it fails to increase the level of tension as it should - and the film becomes more sleepy as it approaches its end. Even with Clint at his best, this film's second half is almost deadening.

Here is a very, very tense thriller about a New Orleans cop (Clint Eastwood) finding a serial killer.....and vice-versa.

This is a very dark (literally) film with a big film-noir look and feel. Neo-noir, I guess, is what they call post-1950 gritty crime films like these.

Eastwood's character in "Tightrope" is a complex one. On one hand, he's a wonderfully loving father of two sweet girls (one played by his actual daughter, and played well), and yet he is a weak man when it comes to prostitutes. But, whatever side he shows - light or dark - he's interesting, as always. So is the female star of this movie, Genevieve Bujold, a woman with a very intriguing face and just a trace of her French accent. Dan Heyada contributes strongly in a low- key performance.

Yes, this film is a bit too much on the seedy side for my normal tastes, definitely sordid, but very well done. It's a story that grabs you early and locks you in all the way.

Of all of Clint Eastwood's performances, this is probably my favourite. In this part, Eastwood gives his character enormous depth and vulnerability, and touches on the insecurities and weaknesses that drive an otherwise normal man into sexual deviance. All of this he does in the guise of one of his most well-worn characters -- a police detective out after a psychopathic killer. Unlike the "Dirty Harry" pictures or "The Gauntlet", in which Eastwood only suggested the existence of human weakness, here that weakness is interwoven with the plot (in which the psychopath knows and manipulates the detective's weakness for deviant sex), heightening the tension.

What makes the film all the more impressive is that it doesn't dwell exclusively on the deviant side of Eastwood's personality. That would be the easy way out. Instead, it counterbalances that aspect of his character with some nice family moments, making sure to let the audience know (and convincingly at that) that this is a man who truly does have more than one side to him.

The acting from the supporting players is fine, although most of them (namely, Genevieve Bujold and Dan Hedaya) are given little to do. Perhaps the most surprising discovery from the film is the performance of Eastwood's daughter Alison, who gives an exceptional performance as the detective's daughter, who senses something is not quite right with her father, but loves him just the same.

The film is not without flaws -- Tuggle's script skips a couple of grooves in the plausibility category (namely, when certain characters have to be killed off), and there are a few gaps in the script. All told, however, Tuggle's direction is strong, using dimly lit sets for more than just noirish effect, and building up to a very strong finale. Moreover, his scriptwriting flaws can be excused because of the strong and full character he creates.

This is a film in which Eastwood creates a character not unlike that in his superb performance in "In the Line of Fire." All the same, it is a performance that in a weaker Oscar year might have been worthy of an Oscar nomination.

How is this not super entertaining?

'Tightrope' should have all the ingredients to make the viewer be on the edge of their seat, and yet I really didn't care much for it. Clint Eastwood, who apparently took over unofficially as director from Richard Tuggle during filming, gives a solid performance and the bond with his character's children is cute.

However, the story just didn't do anything for me. It's not particularly unnerving, despite a dark on paper story, and it's rather predictable - the villain... well, the villain I've already forgotten about and I only finished watching about an hour ago.

Not terrible, but not good.

During what I have come to think of as his "early period" in the sixties, Clint Eastwood was best known for acting in Westerns, but by his "middle period" in the seventies and eighties the Western genre was in decline so (with a couple of exceptions such as "The Outlaw Josey Wales" and "Pale Rider") he was forced to reinvent himself. During this period he was probably best known for cop thrillers. He made no fewer than five featuring his iconic "Dirty Harry" character, but also played a detective in several other films.

Eastwood tried hard to make each of his characters an individual in his own right; they might also be police detectives but that does not mean that they are simply Dirty Harry under another name and transferred to a different city. His character in "Tightrope", Wes Block, is quite different not only from Harry but also from Walt Coogan, Eastwood's "cool dude" cop in "Coogan's Bluff" or from Ben Shockley, the washed-up alcoholic he played in "The Gauntlet". Block is a divorcée whose wife has left him to bring up their two daughters Penny and Amanda. (Amanda is played by Eastwood's real-life daughter Alison). He is hard-working and conscientious and is devoted to his two girls, as well as to the family's numerous pet dogs. He is often seen with a drink in his hand, but his drinking is not made a plot point as it is with Shockley in "The Gauntlet". As we shall see, however, he also has a dark side.

The action takes place in New Orleans. A serial killer is preying on the city's vice girls, and Block is assigned to the case. He has, however, something more than a purely professional interest in the case. He is himself a user of the services of prostitutes, and some of the dead women were personally known to him in the course of their profession rather than his. (It is implied that he only began using prostitutes after his wife left him and that this was not the reason for the break-up of his marriage). As the story progresses we also discover that the killer has a personal interest in Block, and that not only Block but also his daughters and his new girlfriend Beryl are in danger. (But then we could have guessed that from the start. It is one of the unwritten rules of Hollywood that in any police procedural involving a serial killer the villain must have a personal grudge against the detective, or take a sadistic pleasure in playing psychological mind-games with him, or both).

The film is perhaps overlong, and the plot is occasionally obscure, making it difficult to work out exactly what is going on. One thing that is never explained is why Block's superiors never took him off the case when they realised that he had a personal involvement. (In a high-profile homicide case like this one he would not have been working alone but would have been part of a team). Director Richard Tuggle, however, manages to generate an atmosphere not only of suspense but also of seediness and moral corruption. Although New Orleans is one of America's most photogenic cities, we do not see much of its glamorous touristic side, only its dark underbelly. Eastwood also gives a good performance, making Block someone we can sympathise with despite his flaws. The film is not in the class of the original "Dirty Harry", but it is considerably better than the weaker entries in that franchise, such as "The Dead Pool", or the ludicrously improbable "The Gauntlet". 6/10

Good thriller set in New Orleans , Louisiana , and casts disturbing Detective Wes Block (Clint Eastwood) along with a cop colleague (Dan Hedaya) and a counselor (Geneviève Bujold). This homicice inspector for the New Orleans Police Department gets his latest assignment : to track down a Jack the Ripper-style sex killer . All of this contrasts with his home life as a single and separated parent with two young girls (Alison Eastwood , Jenny Beck) . Then on the case, he meets Rape Services Counselor Beryl Thibodeaux (Genevieve Bujold) , with whom a relationship possibly offering some easiness begins to develop . Nevertheless, his enquiries go wrong , leading him to dark sides where he is no stranger off-duty and resulting in fateful consequences .

This is a taut suspense thriller , though really sordid , sleaze and sisister , in which Clint Eastwood gives a terrific acting as a cop on the edge who's leading an investigation into a sex murderer who is raping and murdering women . But this case hits disturbingly close to home in more ways than one . It shows efficiently New Orleans' French Quarter , including sightseeing and spectacular parades , but also into the seedy side of town . The picture is notable both as a suspense thriller and as a riveting vehicle for Eastwood who experiments with an unsettling portrait of a police inspector with some peculiarities of his own . Eastwood in well accompanied by a good main and support cast providing acceptable interpretations , such as : Genevieve Bujold , Dan Hedaya , Marco St John , Jamie Rose and his own daughter : Alison Eastwood . A strong film being rated R for profanity , sex , sleaziness and violence .

Well written ad directed by Richard Tuggle with important collaboration by the great Clint Eastwood. Tuggle wrote the successful Escape from Alcatraz by Don Siegel with Estwood himself and made another movie : Out of bounds with Anthony Michael hall . While Clint Eastwood was in a nice period in which he often used to play to direct competent thrillers during the 70s and 80s , such as : The Gauntlet , Dirty Harry , Magnum Force , Sudden impact , The Black Pool , City Heat , Escape from Alcatraz , Thundelbotl and Lightfoot , Pink Cadillac , Firefox , among others. Rating : 6/10 . Decent thiller that will appeal to Clint Eastwood fans . Well worth watching .

Tightrope is a film which saw Clint Eastwood push the envelope on the thriller genre, He plays a sexually deviant cop on the hunt for a serial killer who is making the case very personal. The film is set in New Orleans and although credited as being directed by Richard Tuggle rumours are Eastwood took over the shoot and to be honest this does have his directorial trademark all over it. Tightrope is a well made film which takes the time to tell it's story giving us the background into Eastwood's character's home life which contrasts greatly to his night life passions. Watching this again you really have to admire Eastwood for portraying such a complex character in Wes Block as he is not just playing a straight up good guy cop. Eastwood has good chemistry with his co star Genevieve Bujold however Dan Hedaya has little to do. In my opinion what lets the film down is the reveal of the killer himself. As an audience we never really get to know this character aside numerous shots of his shoes and this makes the climax feel a little weak as we are not fully invested in his motivations. Ultimately Tightrope is an Eastwood film, and even with mid tier Eastwood you are guaranteed a good film. Tightrope is a good solid thriller which dared to push the envelope and to a point succeeded.

Set in an underdeveloped New Orleans, the film begins and ends at night; but the beginning is frankly disheartening. How many times have we seen a girl go home alone in the middle of the night crossing totally deserted streets, chased by a maniac? Luckily this time she manages to escape, so that the sequence can be read as an ironic quotation. The rest of the film, however, does not have a great rhythm: the modest director Tuggle limits himself to following the policeman Eastwood in an orderly manner in search of an inveterate serial killer of women (the reason for such ferocity will not be known). The environments, often sordid, are described without exaggeration, perhaps for fear of censorship; and as in "Dirty Harry", it is suggested more than once that the killer represents the other face of the policeman. To conclude, a small observation: we see Genievieve Bujold attacked and almost killed by the maniac: hadn't we known her as a female self-defense instructor?

I entered into this expecting to have a Dirty Harry style experience, but what's actually on offer is more like a neo-noir Sleazy Harry. It's a cop on the hunt of a serial killer thriller that plays out like a middling episode of 'The Equalizer', only about sixty minutes longer (yawn). Naturally, Clint or 'Wes Block' as he's called here, is our cop while the killer in question is a mask wearing Scooby Doo escapee who we never really see until the end reel. Now i don't have a problem with that, but some things make the criminal comical when i'm sure that wasn't the intention. Twice in the film we see the murderer mere yards away from Wes, at the crime scene seemingly taunting our hero, but really you just want to shout 'He's behind you!', in true panto spirit. Tonally, writer/director Richard Tuggle goes dark. It's a near humourless, straight up affair that depicts Wes on one hand a devoted father, and on the other an arrogant, sex obsessed womaniser. There's a few light-hearted and amusing moments between him and his two young daughters but none of much really stacks up to a great deal and inevitably it all falls flat with a series of predictable murders, plodding pacing and a laughable finale.

I truly consider Tightrope to be by far one of Eastwood's best acting performances. He definitely DID deserve, that year, at least an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. And don't be mistaken, Wes Block has nothing to do with Dirty Harry ... true, these two cops both have their "dark side" -an aspect that Eastwood has learned to exploit in a number of his pictures, BUT Wes Block appears to be much more "human" than Harry. This single father is struggling with his own demons, persuaded that until now he has screwed up about everything in his life, beginning with his marriage ... he's trying real hard to be a good father, as well as a good cop, that is until this killer comes along and threatens all he's been fighting for to preserve.

Here we get to know a guy who's extremely vulnerable, hurt, un-self confident, haunted and whose relationship with women remains ambiguous, based on control, kind of as if he was afraid of them, of what they could do to him, seeing them as a threat ... hence his resort to the services of prostitutes and his use of handcuffs on them.

As usual in Eastwood's movies, we wanna know what's underneath this front his characters put on ... -like in Pale Rider, Josey Wales, The Bridges of Madison County ... the silences, the puzzling, haunting, deep looks, that tell us far more about a character than any word would. "Less is more" is definitely a guideline of this movie. Most of the time, Eastwood's characters reveal themselves through their silences, and it's particularly true here.

I believe there's a line in Tightrope that sums up pretty accurately what Eastwood's movies are really about: "I'm not sure how close I wanna get ..." They're about very private men struggling with life.

This movie is simply one of his best.

A divorced detective in New Orleans (Clint Eastwood) juggles raising two daughters, pursing a serial rapist/killer, cultivating a romantic relationship (Geneviève Bujold) and dealing with his own dark side, which he realizes is too close for comfort to the killer.

"Tightrope" (1984) is another Eastwood detective flick, but it's not as entertaining and compelling as his Dirty Harry films or "The Gauntlet" (1977). It's darker, more dramatic and brooding, not to mention a tad sleazy. This may bring to mind the original "Dirty Harry" (1971), but the subdued tone is closer to "Blood Work" (2002).

The title refers to a person walking the tightrope between his/her good side and bad side.

The movie runs 1 hour, 54 minutes and was shot entirely in New Orleans.

GRADE: C+/B-