Devastating stylistic exercise wasted on a bland story
Eastwood has a penchant for styling films way beyond the naturalistic but audiences have an even stronger habit of seeing anything to do with cowboys or cops as necessarily naturalistic. They want realism, Eastwood wants them to see past that to the issues at work. Audiences - and the reviews here on IMDB support me on this - want characters who are amusing or interesting: in Eastwood's high style, the characters represent points of view, philosophies or, in the case of his heroes, principles.
This high style finds its expression in Pale Rider and High Plains Drifter, where the hero has no clear identity. Each story is about a man with no name. He is what he does, in a manner very reminiscent of the two directors who appear to have influenced Eastwood the most, Leone and Kurosawa.
The highly stylised cop in The Gauntlet doesn't appear out of nowhere. In film terms, he begins in Don Siegel's Dirty Harry. People seem to enjoy taking Harry literally - but I think the film works better if you look at what Harry represents rather than who he is.
And so it is with Shockley in The Gauntlet. He represents the American Everyman, the guy who is going to get the job done. He has his flaws: he's not too bright; he drinks too much. He gets paid bupkis and he's not going to win any promotion. But he's honest. And his "superiors" aren't.
He could be Gary Cooper in Meet John Doe, or James Stewart in It's a Wonderful Life. Frank Capra didn't make those films naturalistic: the private militia of DB Norton in John Doe, Doe's willingness to come back and commit suicide on Christmas Eve; Clarence the angel in Wonderful Life: did anybody ever pretend they were realistic? They are great films presented in a very non-realistic way.
The high point of the gauntlet is, of course, the gauntlet that Shockley has to run. Actually he trundles through it, as slowly as possible, and this seems to offend some viewers who think it's dumb. They just don't get it: it's a protest.
It is a protest that persuades the masses, ie the Phoenix police officers who, initially reluctant to fire upon one of their own, put down their weapons en masse as Shockley survives, in recognition of the fact that he represents the cops they want to be rather than the tools of corruption they sense they have become. His corrupt chief is left alone, futile, and despised as they group around him, in a victory for principle.
It's a daring way to present a moral tale, wrapping it inside a cop movie and giving none of the clues - an angel, for example - that scream "not realism" at the audience. It deserves better recognition.
It also deserved better than Sondra Locke as the prostitute more worthy of Shockley's protection than his corrupt boss, and Pat Hingle as his morally inept friend. William Prince, however, is chillingly brilliant as the centre of corruption. (Old principle of story-telling: a hero is only as great as the villain challenges him to be.)
Unfortunately, this level of movie-making also deserved a story that hasn't been done so many times before.
This high style finds its expression in Pale Rider and High Plains Drifter, where the hero has no clear identity. Each story is about a man with no name. He is what he does, in a manner very reminiscent of the two directors who appear to have influenced Eastwood the most, Leone and Kurosawa.
The highly stylised cop in The Gauntlet doesn't appear out of nowhere. In film terms, he begins in Don Siegel's Dirty Harry. People seem to enjoy taking Harry literally - but I think the film works better if you look at what Harry represents rather than who he is.
And so it is with Shockley in The Gauntlet. He represents the American Everyman, the guy who is going to get the job done. He has his flaws: he's not too bright; he drinks too much. He gets paid bupkis and he's not going to win any promotion. But he's honest. And his "superiors" aren't.
He could be Gary Cooper in Meet John Doe, or James Stewart in It's a Wonderful Life. Frank Capra didn't make those films naturalistic: the private militia of DB Norton in John Doe, Doe's willingness to come back and commit suicide on Christmas Eve; Clarence the angel in Wonderful Life: did anybody ever pretend they were realistic? They are great films presented in a very non-realistic way.
The high point of the gauntlet is, of course, the gauntlet that Shockley has to run. Actually he trundles through it, as slowly as possible, and this seems to offend some viewers who think it's dumb. They just don't get it: it's a protest.
It is a protest that persuades the masses, ie the Phoenix police officers who, initially reluctant to fire upon one of their own, put down their weapons en masse as Shockley survives, in recognition of the fact that he represents the cops they want to be rather than the tools of corruption they sense they have become. His corrupt chief is left alone, futile, and despised as they group around him, in a victory for principle.
It's a daring way to present a moral tale, wrapping it inside a cop movie and giving none of the clues - an angel, for example - that scream "not realism" at the audience. It deserves better recognition.
It also deserved better than Sondra Locke as the prostitute more worthy of Shockley's protection than his corrupt boss, and Pat Hingle as his morally inept friend. William Prince, however, is chillingly brilliant as the centre of corruption. (Old principle of story-telling: a hero is only as great as the villain challenges him to be.)
Unfortunately, this level of movie-making also deserved a story that hasn't been done so many times before.
- jminer
- Jan 17, 2001