Tightrope

Clint plays a homicide cop but he's by no means a Dirty Harry. Instead of Cool San Francisco the location is Sweaty New Orleans and if his character Wes Block is a 'dirty' person, he's not dirty in the sense Harry was (he's dirty in the sense some people in the first movie thought Harry was!). His wife has left him, he drinks, has two daughters and four dogs, and a preference for kinky sex. To complicate things, a sex killer starts preying on the prostitutes and parlor girls in the French Quarter of New Orleans, that is: the girls our detective visits on regular intervals to give rein to his passions.  

Tightrope is a nice variation on the so-called döppelganger theme, with Clint's sleazy cop having the idea somebody's playing a game with him and usurping his identity.

Clint was praised by several critics for taking the risk to destroy his screen persona by playing a 'louse'. Tightrope may indeed give you the feeling that Clint has wandered off in the wrong cop-versus-killer movie. That is not a bad thing though. At least not necessarily. Tightrope is an interesting tour de force for its star, but it never really solves this complex situation of a man chasing (and being chased by) a person who's at the same time his direct opposite and his spitting image. In classic stories about the döppelganger theme, such as Dostoïevski's famous novella The Double, the haunted man eventually loses his mind. Tightrope takes a more predictable turn with the maniac attacking the detective's home and family.

As a thriller, Tightrope does a decent job. The editing is a bit sloppy, leading to a couple of non-sequiturs, but there are enough Hitchcock moments to keep you intrigued. Clint gets good support of Geneviève Buyold and his own daughter Alison (who plays the older of the two daughters in the movie). However, some of the material is rather unpleasant; personally I don't like scenes of lust killers stalking on young girls, even if you know their father is Clint Eastwood and things will work out in the end. 

Aanraders in overeenkomstige genres, volgens Boobytrap:
- La Femme Infidèle (The Unfaithful Wife) (thriller / drama : 8)
- Que la bête meure (thriller / drama : 8)
- Desu nôto (Death Note) (thriller / fantasy : 7.5)
- Obsession (thriller / romantiek : 7.5)
- Schemer (thriller : 7.5)

Hoe beoordeelt Boobytrap categorie thriller eigenlijk? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10