La corde raide

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.

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.

"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.

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.

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.