"That's a nice-a donut."
Monday, October 10, 2005
The Eiger Sanction (1975)
Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry has left his job as a renegade police detective and is a world-traveling art scholar by day and a grizzled old assassin by night in The Eiger Sanction. Well, for obvious reasons, the character isn't actually named Harry but rather the much more distinguished Dr. Jonathan Hemlock. In fact his background as a shoot first, ask questions later, cop is never even alluded to. It may not even actually be the same man, but as Hemlock Eastwood turns to the same basic character model that he would play to success throughout his career (along with his stone-faced cowboy from Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns). With The Eiger Sanction, director Eastwood (in one of his earlier directorial efforts) attempted to fashion his "Harry" into a more sophisticated role in a different genre (read: not Cops and Robbers or Cowboys and Indians).
It's not a film that is easy to place into a well-defined category. Dr. Hemlock is a renowned art history professor - with an impressive collection of his own - who happens to also be in the business of wet works. He is sometimes hired by a secretive organization to carry out assassinations for the government, though he is clear that he does it solely to finance his expensive lust for art. He is sort of a precursor to Indiana Jones in this regard, not for what he does, but for the fact that he is a scholar by trade and a sort of adventurer on the side. And a ladies man too, as he is seduced by a beautiful stewardess named Jemima (Vonetta McGee) and later by George (Brenda Venus) a beautiful near-mute woman who helps him to train for an upcoming mountain climbing expedition.
The reason for the expedition is rather convoluted and questionable, though this and other holes with the plot may date back to the book that the movie is adapted from. In any case, Hemlock is blackmailed by the leader of the secret organization (a "bloodless freak" with an aversion to light) to carry out a sanction on someone on a climb up the treacherous Mt. Eiger. The identity of the target is unknown, so Hemlock must figure out which of his fellow climbers must be eliminated.
The movie is well-shot, especially during the mountain scenes, with some very nice looking scenery to boot. I liked Hemlock, though I kept imagining how in the world Harry Callahan could be an art connoisseur. Eastwood brings his trademark wit and has a number of funny deadpan lines, like "You forgot the 42 cents," after the bloodless freak quotes Hemlock's checking account balance. George Kennedy (who in recent times is best remembered as an inept cop in the Naked Gun movies) is also a riot as a beer-drinking carefree old friend when he is first introduced, playing the comic foil quite nicely. But his character loses some of the polish and doesn't do much once the Eiger scenes commence. Moreover, by the time we reach Eiger, the movie seems to have trouble deciding what genre it is: a mystery thriller or a rock climbing adventure.
On their own terms, the different pieces of the movie are solid and work well. The problem is that the pieces don't add up. By the end, after a resolution that is a letdown and rather dismal, we are left wondering how a promising work could become such a bloated mess. And on another note, for some reason, the opening credits have possibly the worst font ever on film; the words are nearly unreadable as the letters blend together. It's a shame the movie didn't blend as well.
The Verdict: C+.
Michael Bentley 12:29 PM
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