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From: reiher@ucla-cs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.movies
Subject: "Tightrope" and Dirty Harry
Message-ID: <1013@ucla-cs.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 5-Sep-84 02:04:23 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucla-cs.1013
Posted: Wed Sep  5 02:04:23 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 25-Sep-84 03:07:26 EDT
Organization: UCLA CS Dept.
Lines: 66


     "Yep, it's another "Dirty Harry" look-alike ..."
						Terry Laskodi

I can understand not liking "Tightrope", though I did like it a lot.  It
is not really accurate to criticize it as a "Dirty Harry" lookalike, though.
Let's take a look at similarities and differences:

Similarities:

	1.  Clint Eastwood stars in both.
	2.  Both are about cops.
	3.  Both cops are divorced.

Well, that's about it for similarities, and I've included the similarities of
style and tone as well as those of plot.  Now for other side.

Differences:

	1.  Dirty Harry movies are all extremely violent.  The purpose of these
		movies is to give Eastwood as many chances as possible to blow
		away scum who obviously don't deserve to live.  To make their
		worthlessness clear, show more violence, with the scum killing
		other people.  "Tightrope" has a fair number of dead bodies,
		but the only explicit violence is at the very end.

	2.  Dirty Harry is a loner without any emotional ties, except maybe 
		to his partner.  Block, in "Tightrope", is a father who
		obviously loves his kids very much and loved his wife very
		much, too.

	3.  Dirty Harry operates in complete contempt of the law.  He'll get
		the bad guys any way he can; if he has to break some laws to
		do it, tough luck.  Fans of these films would say he prefers
		justice to law.  Opponents say that what's really operating
		is revenge.  Block is pretty much by the book.  Any laws he
		breaks have little or nothing to do with solving the case.
		Even under extreme provocation, he doesn't go out by himself
		to kick some ass.  He follows procedures.

	4.  A few teases in "Sudden Impact" to the contrary, Dirty Harry
		isn't really interested in sex.  It takes out too much time
		which could be spent blowing holes in people.  Eastwood's
		character in "Tightrope" is extremely interested in sex.

	5.  Dirty Harry's partners are marked for death the moment they
		get assigned to him.  Block doesn't have a partner as
		such, and the cops he works with aren't set up just to get
		knocked down.

	6.   Dirty Harry lives in a simple, black and white world.  Block
		doesn't.

I could go on, but I guess you get the point.  "Tightrope" is not really
an action thriller.  It's rather more psychological.  If you don't like that,
OK.  Personally, I think that it's a much better film than any of the Dirty
Harry pictures (with the exception of the first one, which benefited from
fine direction by Don Seigel).  At any rate, it isn't trying to be a Dirty
Harry type film, and it seems unfair to judge it as such.  By the way, it
made $20 million in 10 days, which is the best opening for any Clint Eastwood
picture.  I guess someone else likes it, too.
-- 

					Peter Reiher
					reiher@ucla-cs.arpa
					{...ihnp4,ucbvax,sdcrdcf}!ucla-cs!reiher