Post by ronnierocketago on Feb 5, 2010 10:35:53 GMT
THE DEAD POOL (1988) - ***
THE DEAD POOL is the fifth, last, and weakest entry of the wildly popular, influential, and entertaining Dirty Harry series starring Clint Eastwood as Inspector "Dirty" Harry Callahan. What works best and makes this at the very basic watchable is Eastwood's quiet macho presence and natural deadpan comedy (they're always welcomed), and DEAD POOL basically following the franchise formula: Action scenes, stinging quips, badass Clint moments, a few good laughs, destroyed public property, car chase, him being chewed out on the carpet by his redtape-blind superiors who suspend him again, getting a new partner doomed not to last the movie, and of course Harry using his trademark swift deadly .44 Magnum justice against criminals that has nothing what so ever to do with the plot.
After getting famous for testifying in a mob trial and surviving several assassination attempts, Harry gets named by a local betting "dead pool," a list of celebrities that might kick the bucket. I must admit a decade ago, I (thankfully) lost $20 betting on Robert Downey Jr. for the 2000s. I admit it, I'm an asshole. Anyway, those celebrities are being knocked off, and Harry is next on THE DEAD POOL. That's all the plot you need to know really. You don't want to waste your time questioning the Mafia not whacking Eastwood before his testimony got their boss convicted, and why Eastwood's Chinese-American partner knows martial arts. Well of course!
Beyond the quota obligations, DEAD POOL lacks that certain punch which would satisfy most viewers. Once again Eastwood deals with a serial killer, except he's not rather compelling, nothing more than stock cardboard. He's Diet Scorpio, One Calorie. Caffeine Free. Left outside the fridge in July. The action choreography is adequete, if uninspired. The climatic action set-piece is boring. I mean how can go meh with death by giant harpoon gun?
Most of the story elements just go nowhere.They begin, they develop, they're forgotten. They all have a 1st and 2nd act, but truant on the 3rd act. Eastwood's budding relationship with TV reporter Patricia Clarkson (SIX FEET UNDER), the suggestive gimmick about the killer's identity (which fools nobody), pretentious hack horror movie director Liam Neeson, etc. Even a fun suggestion of the mafia becoming bodyguards for Eastwood is nothing more than a disposable joke.
Perhaps the problem is that this one lacked what the previous chapters gave us. Each of the first four very good Dirty Harry pictures starting with the original classic all have a particular (and for the most part) well-executed theme around that iconic contemporary cowboy which were topical at the time. Some still are. The original DIRTY HARRY of course was about the idea that crooks were more protected by society than their victims. Harry defending the flawed system against fascist vigilante cops in MAGNUM FORCE. THE ENFORCER with sexism and women emerging from a patriarch society, SUDDEN IMPACT about Harry tracking down a Reagan-era avenger going "Dirty Harry" on her perpetrators.
With DEAD POOL, it's our shallow celebrity culture where your life is substantiated on the premise that it must matter by the fact that people know you. Regardless if celebrity comes from being an actor or psychotic murderer. The press are dicks by instigating this vicious cycle, for do violence in media beget more violence? All are good themes, despite being oldhat even by 1988. But DEAD POOL doesn't put much thought (if at all) much less be curious by them. Earlier better movies explored them with more depth and tact. Or at the least bothered. Disapointing since the last theme especially is appropriate, considering how many conservatives still seriously desire the fantasy DIRTY HARRY.
That said there were three decent scenes to those subjects. One, Eastwood pulling out a gun on autograph seekers. Two, you have TV reporter Patricia Clarkson (SIX FEET UNDER) getting in the face of a girl who just found out her junkie rockstar boyfriend (Jim Carrey!) is dead. Later the tables are turned on her. Three, some desperate loser crying for attention lies about being the "Deadpool Killer" and ensues a pathetic hostage situation which ole Harry of course has to dispatch.
THE DEAD POOL is one of those low/modest budget Malpaso star vehicles for Eastwood that he would crank out for Warner Bros. with an admirable efficiency in production and (sometimes) narrative economics usually with most of the same crew. The director was Eastwood stunt coordinator and former body double Buddy Van Horn, who also helmed Eastwood's PINK CADILLAC and ANY WHICH WAY YOU CAN, or movies Eastwood couldn't be arsed to shoot himself. The screenplay was written by Eastwood associates who didn't write another produced script before or since. This doesn't surprise me at all.
Eastwood probably retired DIRTY HARRY because he realized that it by then the series had basically run out of steam, for that sort of movie's time had come and passed. In retrospect, summer 1988 is a symbolic pasing of the torch between two action classics which shaped and formed their respective Hollywood genre epochs. Opening on the same week as DEAD POOL was a 20th Century Fox thriller about a exploding skyscraper under siege by Eurotrash terrorists. Named after a car battery, and starring a sitcom star wearing no shoes.
Other brief joys can be found in THE DEAD POOL. Liam Neeson as a pretentious hack asshole movie director who overestimates his own talent and creativity, or your Irish Michael Bay. A young heroin junkie Carrey in his usual subtle mannerisms lip-synching to the Guns N' Roses classic "Welcome to the Jungle." The band makes a cameo at the funeral. A Pauline Kael-esque movie critic gets slaughtered, and Eastwood gets his belated (campy) revenge at her for calling DIRTY HARRY fascist.
Oh and that car chase meant to emulate and parody another San Francisco-based action classic in BULLITT, but with Eastwood stalked by a small explosive-strapped remote control car. Some roll their eyes, I grin. Sure I also feel this lost some possible thunder because Michael Crichton's mediocre RUNAWAY earlier pulled off a similar (more serious) sequence.