The Gauntlet

Armed with precisely the sort of laid-back pacing one has come to expect from director Clint Eastwood, The Gauntlet suffers from a pervasively muted atmosphere that effectively drains its more overtly thrilling interludes of their impact. The movie follows grizzled cop Ben Shockley (Eastwood) as he’s assigned the task of escorting a foul-mouthed prostitute (Sondra Locke’s Gus Malley) from Las Vegas to Phoenix, with problems ensuing as the bickering pair find themselves confronted with a series of increasingly deadly obstacles designed to prevent them from arriving at their final destination. It’s an intriguing premise that’s initially employed to promising effect by Eastwood, as the filmmaker – working from a script by Michael Butler and Dennis Shryack – does a nice job of establishing the two central characters and their progressively precarious situation. Eastwood’s typically relaxed approach to the material ultimately does more harm than good, however, with the film’s positive attributes (ie the two leads’ strong work) slowly but surely rendered moot in the face of an overlong running time and a dearth of genuinely compelling sequences. It’s consequently not surprising to note that The Gauntlet, though essentially watchable throughout, is only truly compelling in fits and starts, as the movie is bogged down by an emphasis on hopelessly underwhelming encounters and situations – although, to be fair, Eastwood does offer up a handful of electrifying moments that elevate the proceedings on an all-too-infrequent basis (ie Ben narrowly rescues Gus from a trio of nasty bikers). The film’s problems are exacerbated by an action-packed climax that’s nothing short of preposterous (and not in a good way), which effectively cements The Gauntlet‘s place as a sporadically entertaining yet consistently unsatisfying thriller that’s rarely up to the level of its two stars.

** out of ****