Review: 12807

Directed by: Buddy Van Horn | 91 minutes | action, drama, thriller, crime | Actors: Clint Eastwood, Patricia Clarkson, Liam Neeson, Evan C. Kim, David Hunt, Michael Currie, Michael Goodwin, Darwin Gillet, Anthony Charnota, Christopher P. Beale, John Allen Vick, Jeff Richmond, Patrick Van Horn, Sigrid Wurschmidt, Jim Carrey, Deborah A. Bryan, Nicholas Love, Maureen McVerry, John X. Heart, Victoria Bastel, Kathleen Turco-Lyon, Michael Fagir, Ronnie Claire Edwards, Wallace Choy, Melodie Soe, Kristopher Logan

The latest Dirty Harry may not be the best of the series, but it is certainly entertaining, with a trusted Clint Eastwood as the no-nonsense cop Harry Calahan who is as usual again short of substance and unceremoniously knocks the villains over. All things considered, the movie shouldn’t work. The story is of the thirteen-in-a-dozen type, the atmosphere is like that of a typical eighties TV movie, there is hardly any tension and the action scenes are usually not very special or exciting. And yet the viewer will not get bored watching the fifth film about the adventures of Dirty Harry. Because Clint just remains Clint, in other words cool. Whether he’s playing Man Zonder Naam or Dirty Harry, Eastwood always manages to draw attention to himself with his charisma. Add to that some nice scenes and well-known actors in their early years, and you have a film that, despite the negatives, simply looks away.

‘The Dead Pool’ has a slightly less serious tone than the rest of the Dirty Harry series, and this is perhaps a good thing, because the story is too cartoony, with characters outlined too simply, to give a lot of drama or suspense. can get. Of course Harry comes up with simplistic one-liners like “You forgot your fortune cookie. It says… you’re shit out of luck. ” and “Opinions are like assholes. Everybody has one. ”, But there are also comical situations and other characters in the film that keep the whole interesting. Like a very young Jim Carrey who plays a drug-using rock star who does a hilarious Axl Rose impersonation for a horror movie. A horror film directed by Liam Neeson dressed in a leather jacket with a wrong tail. Neeson’s acting is not particularly memorable, but it is nice to see him perform in such a role and at such an early stage in his career. Carrey’s role is very funny, but only for a short time.

The partner Harry is saddled with seems to meet the typical buddy film description, due to his different ethnicity – he is Chinese, but fortunately the film does not follow the beaten track in the sense that there is a lot of friction between the colleagues and they then become the best of buddies. Callahan’s Chinese colleague does live up to the cliché that every Chinese (in films) is good at kung fu, but this aspect is actually only used once in the film. Furthermore, the partners are quite natural about their interactions, although the characters or their relationship are not developed much.

An amusing over-the-top scene is the one in which Harry suddenly comes up with an unusual and oversized weapon to defeat his opponent. A strange moment in the film, admittedly, but funny. And a scene that, as well as being funny, is also original, spectacular and exciting, takes place when Harry and his colleague, over a long track with different types of roads and many hills, are chased by a radio-controlled car loaded with a bomb. Again somewhat strange, perhaps, but filmed compellingly. It is the scenes and aspects like this that keep “The Dead Pool” above water and give it its own face, and ensure that the series does not end completely ingloriously.