Nessieldwi
Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.
Ogosmith
Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.
Roy Hart
If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.
slightlymad22
The Gauntlet (1977)Plot In A Paragraph: A cop (Eastwood) is assigned to escort a prostitute (Sondra Locke) into custody from Las Vegas to Phoenix, so that she can testify in a mob trial. But a lot of people are literally betting that they won't make it into town alive.Assuming joint actor/director responsibilities for a fifth occasion, Clint Eastwood directed himself and Outlaw Josie Wales costar Sondra Locke in what essentially is a screwball comedy masquerading as an action adventure.The pacing of the movie is tight, the dialogue cracking with crude insults and snappy banter and the action is well staged too. Ben Shockley is no Harry Callaghan (even if they both share s downbeat sense of humour and a grumpy temperament) as unlike the dynamic and instinctive Harry Callaghan, who is always in control and always ready for action, Shockley is an underachieving Buffoon, slow on his feet and slow on the uptake, and blind to the corruption in the police force. Sondra Locke so cute and vulnerable in The Outlaw Josie Wales, does a complete turn around as Gus Mally is feisty and foul mouthed. Once again her character is the victim of a sexual assault. Like Dirty Harry and Kate Moore in The Enforcer, Shockley and Mally are at odds from the start, but slowly and inevitably they earn to each other during the course of the movie. After a decent sized role in The Outlaw Josey Wales, Malpaso regular Bill McKinney was back to a smaller role as a lewd constable. Pat Hingle also has a small but memorable role as Shockleys former partner and William Prince is fine as Blakelock.Once again Jerry Fielding (his third Eastwood movie in a row) does a great job of composing the score, and I need to add this movie has a great poster. The Gauntlet grossed $35 mill at the domestic Box Office to end 1977 as the 14th highest grossing movie of the year.
BA_Harrison
Clint Eastwood stars as Ben Shockley, a gruff, tough maverick cop (natch!) who is given the task of extraditing Las Vegas hooker Gus Malley (Sondra Locke) to Phoenix, where she is to testify at a mob trial. Unfortunately for Ben, the mob have connections in the police force, and what seems like a simple job at first turns into a fight for survival against the odds.It would be easy to fault The Gauntlet for its incredibly dumb premise—the finale, in which Shockley and Malley must run a gauntlet of heavily armed police in order to reach city hall is preposterous in the extreme—but a lack of credibility is actually the least of this film's problems. Clint Eastwood's bland action direction is partly to blame, the star failing to generate any sense of excitement despite numerous situations in which certain death seems like the likely outcome for Shockley and Malley; the film's biggest drawback, however, is Sondra Locke, who couldn't act her way out of a paper bag if her life depended on it, and who doesn't even have the looks necessary to excuse such a lack of talent.
mrb1980
Clint Eastwood strays a little from his Dirty Harry character in this violent, ridiculously illogical, but enjoyable film. Eastwood plays Shockley, a fairly dim-witted detective who must bring witness Gus Mally (Sondra Locke) from Las Vegas to Phoenix. Along the way, there are lots of gunshots and explosions before Shockley's corrupt political superior Blakelock (a deliciously evil William Prince) is killed at the end of the movie.If you don't mind lots of mindless violence and don't care whether a movie makes any sense, you should enjoy "The Gauntlet". I found myself almost laughing at times at the ridiculously contrived plot, and I've never seen so much gunplay in one film. Pat Hingle is good as Shockley's police force friend (you know he'll never live through the movie), and it's good to see Mara Corday briefly as a jail matron. Eastwood's character is somewhat unusual because Shockley just isn't too bright. It's also interesting to see what Phoenix looked like 37 years ago before lots of explosive growth. "The Gauntlet" is worth watching, but it sure won't win any awards for credibility.
bigverybadtom
The plot is simple-hard cop has to escort a prostitute from her home to testify in a mobster's trial several states away. Of course the mobster does everything he can to prevent the pair from making it to the courthouse-and it involves a number of corrupt police officials, including the commissioner.So at the beginning, when the cop arrives at the prostitute's house, a number of machine-gun armed men also arrive and shoot the house into lace (literally), and it collapses. But cop and prostitute still make it out unharmed. So they travel a long distance, get intercepted by a helicopter, and hop a freight train-in a car with a biker gang, and the cop has to deal with them.Near the destination city, the cop tells the commissioner he will get through a street to the courthouse which he knows is going to be full of more machine-gun armed men, and he does so by commandeering a tour bus and somehow finding some armor plate to put around him and the witness as the bus drives through and it too is shot to lace.Basically the movie is porn for seeing thousands of bullets fired.
