Sudden Impact (1983)

Director: Clint Eastwood

Cast: Clint Eastwood, Sondra Locke, Pat Hingle, Bradford Dillman

Have I Seen it Before: Nope.

Did I Like It: I go into this one not with hype in my head, but a strange amount of comfort with Harry Callahan and his world. What’s more, Eastwood directs here for the only time in the series. Who knows Callahan and his strange mix of gruff recalcitrance and underlying decency better than the man who probably still is largely identified with the role?

And yes, Eastwood is probably most at ease in this film, but that makes the entire film seem distracted. Maybe he was a little too in love with Sandra Locke and decides to spend too much time focusing on her. Plenty of directors, and more than a few stars have fallen victim to the pitfalls of romantic nepotism, but Locke sleep walks through a role that feels like it at least needs to alternate between borderline-catatonic and scene-chewing manic.

Maybe it’s just that this is a down-note entry in the series between The Enforcer (1976) where Eastwood is able to be so relaxed that he actually got to be a bit funny, and The Dead Pool (1988), a weird—purely hypothetical for me at this point—pop cultural amalgamation. It’s entirely possible I’m being too hard on Sudden Impact. A series that goes five films without having any entries that aren’t willfully embarrassing is probably a treasure to behold. Star Trek couldn’t manage that feat. Maybe Dirty Harry is allowed to have an off day.

And now it’s just me and The Dead Pool. I strangely can’t wait. With it’s weird alchemy of Eastwood, Liam Neeson, Jim Carrey (before he started talking out of his ass) and the guys who voices Mario? There’s no possibility this thing will ever live up to the hype I created entirely in my head.

Maximum Overdrive (1986)

Director: Stephen King

Cast: Emilio Estevez, Pat Hingle, Laura Harrington, Christopher Murney

Have I Seen it Before: Yes, but there’s an odd story there. At press time, we’re getting ready to do an episode of Beyond the Cabin in the Woods on the movie, and I vaguely tried to put the kibosh on such a thing, not because the film positively reeks from beginning to end, but because I have the strongest, clearest memory of not only watching the movie, but discussing it on the podcast. The forensic evidence is clear. We have no episode on the movie, but the memory persists.

Did I Like It: Of course not, who would? Not King, not Estevez, even the inevitable re-evaluation period that all bad movies are seemingly owed now is half-hearted, at best.

The film is excessively talky, and badly written (you had one job, Steve). It’s not enough that it opens with a title card that reads very boring, but the film ends with another one (you would think that the text of the thing would rise above, but no; Steve had one job).

The performances are all over the place, the special effects are practically non-existent, and the editing is such that I’m reasonably sure that the late, great Pat Hingle was just about to be shot to death by a sentient machine gun (really), the shot cuts away, and then we’re not only treated to a stunt double when the film cuts back, but the stunt double has splashes of red paint on him. It wasn’t like they were concerned about injuring the future Commissioner Gordon with squibs.

All of this—maybe intentional?—camp might be forgiven or enjoyed for what its worth, if it weren’t for the fact that the film groans from tis own sense of boredom with itself. King himself fights an ATM in the early goings, AC/DC keeps the tempo up, and one thinks some measure of fun is ahead. Not so, all that we’re left with by the end is a semi-truck nudging (really) Emilio Estevez into cooperating with their demands. One wonders if that is what coming down off a cocaine high is really like.