Review of The Gauntlet (1977) by Van R — 14 Jun 2010

Clint Eastwoodâ??s sixth directorial effort â??The Gauntletâ?? qualifies as an outlandish, audacious, unbelievable, but thoroughly entertaining contemporary crime melodrama about a lackluster Phoenix detective sent to Las Vegas to bring back a â??nothing witness for a murder trial.

â?? Clint Eastwood stars as Ben Shockley with the Phoenix Police Department. Shockley is far from being the model policeman. In fact, his superiors are hoping that his fair-to-middling record as a cop will make him the perfect choice.

You see corrupt individuals in the Phoenix Police Department are banking that their hired killers can eliminate both Shockley and the witness before they leave Las Vegas. The first surprise for Shockley is that his prisoner isnâ??t a man called Gus Mally, but a woman called Augustina Mally (Sondra Locke of â??The Outlaw Josey Walesâ??).

Mally is a prostitute and she doesnâ??t like Shockley the minute that he lays eyes on her. Repeatedly, Mally tells Shockley that they donâ??t have a chance. Shockley checks the betting opportunities as a Las Vegas gambling place and sees the title Mally-No-Show as part of a race with incredible odds against winning.

Eventually, our slow-witted protagonist figures out that everybody from the Las Vegas Police to his own men-in-blue as well as a gang of bikers are out to kill both Mally and himself. Shockley and Mally survive several â??North By Northwestâ?? style attempts on their lives before our hero commandeers a bus, covers it in armor and runs it through a gauntlet of Phoenix cops to the courthouse where he takes Mally for the court date.

The villains try to kill Shockley on the steps of the courthouse. Mally kills the cop that tries to ice Shockley. During their time together dodging killers of all kinds, Shockley falls in love with Mally and plans to marry her.

Eastwood keeps the action moving along at a steady pace as his hero struggles to figure out who is trying to kill him and his prisoner. Incidentally, although he is armed with a revolver, Shockley never shoots anybody! The improbable Michael Butler and Dennis Shryack screenplay comes with plenty of reversals and gritty humor.

One of the interesting peripheral visual humor bits is the recurring use of billboards to cap off a scene. Another running gag is Shockley recurring use of the phrase "Nag, nag, nag" whenever Mally bothers him about details.