But you know what, it only adds to Clint’s mystique that he so humbly shares the movie with this rookie and even allows the spotlight to shift over to him for a while while the old man is tied up in a warehouse getting raped by Sonia Braga (SPOILER). This is also the most DIRTY HARRY of Clint’s non-DIRTY HARRY pictures. In fact, it probly feels a little more DIRTY HARRY than SUDDEN IMPACT, the one actual DIRTY HARRY that he directed.

But in this one he’s not some supercop. He’s Pulovski, a failed race car driver turned detective in the auto theft division. Nothing big ever happened to him his whole life until this movie. Then by dumb luck some stolen cars he’s chasing lead him to a big time criminal running chop shops and planning to rob a mob casino (long story). The villain is played by Raul Julia, sporting one of the all time most befuddling cinematic accents. I was so happy when Clint referred to him as a “kraut” because then that earlier scene where he was criticizing German beer to Julia seemed less random. And if you think Julia makes an unconvincing German just wait ’til you meet his girlfriend (Braga).

Anyway, like all police officers Pulovski is forced to become partners with a by-the-book rookie (that’s Sheen as David Ackerman). Here’s where the script is subtly clever. Usually a story like that is a device for explaining everything to the viewer. The veteran has to show the rookie the ropes, so the audience also gets to see those same ropes. But here Clint just leaves his partner completely in the dark, doesn’t tell him what case he’s on or that when he stops for lunch at a hotel it’s just because Raul Julia’s there and he wants to give him a bunch of shit for having killed his partner, etc. Ackerman returns the favor and refuses to tell Pulovski jack shit about himself, so it’s a while before we find out he’s from a super rich family and drives a fancy Porsche. But he’s trying to prove himself to his dad and himself and all that.

Most of the entertainment comes from Clint. He’s his usual wry self, using ethically questionable law enforcement tactics and smartass comments. I liked when Sheen’s dad (Tom Skerritt) tried to pay him to guarantee the kid’s safety and Clint says with contempt, “You want a guarantee? Buy a toaster.” It’s so obvious to have Clint as the old guy who gives the young guy a hard time but begrudgingly starts to like him. But who gives a shit? It’s always enjoyable. I’m not gonna complain about having another one of these. I’ll take all of them I can get. There’s only gonna be a finite amount of old Clint action movies.

It has some of those little Eastwood directorial touches that nobody else does. Like for example the jazz score by Lennie Niehaus. This was in a time when mullets and whammy bars still existed. Other action movies were slathered in keyboards, guitar wails and drum machines. There were better action movies playing in theaters that year: HARD TO KILL, MARKED FOR DEATH, DIE HARD 2, TOTAL RECALL, arguably PREDATOR 2 and ANOTHER 48 HOURS. But none of those tried to cool you out with jazz as you left the theater. That’s not something you see in alot of action movies and especially not in 1990. That’s an Eastwood exclusive.

But it has some of the usual excess of the era too. I can hang with the impossible car jump out of the fourth story of an exploding building, but I struggle with the blue screen mid-air “fasten your seatbelt” quip. You see that and you can believe it was the same years as DIE HARD 2, it’s just like the most questionable moments in that one. The funny lines don’t seem so spontaneous when they’re looped over a special effects shot.

There are some cliches in this. I mean, you know how it is. You got a bunch of motorcycles and one of them you really like but you gave up on getting it running years ago. And then Charlie Sheen sits on it, reaches underneath and just twists something with his hand and whaddyaknow, the fuckin thing starts up instantly. This is how most men become friends, through the one-twist engine repair.

I don’t mind that one, but it does have one of my pet peeve cliches, the ol’ leads-repeat-each-other’s-dialogue-later-in-different-contexts move. And it has the even harder to take version of that phenomenon: the entire scene that repeats itself at the end with the roles switched around. It made me actually wish for the depressing ending hinted at earlier.

A more serious problem is that about 85% of the movie takes place at night, so the action scenes are harder to make out than they should be. This must’ve looked like shit on pan and scan VHS. Maybe that’s part of why this movie has a bad reputation. Also because it was the one he did before UNFORGIVEN, so he was at that aging action star stage where people enjoy snidely assuming everything you do is trash. Anyway the constant darkness is one big stylistic difference from the sun-drenched DIRTY HARRY movies.

And this is no DIRTY HARRY. It’s not one of Clint’s better ones, but I enjoyed the hell out of it. It’s got alot of impressive car stunts and funny moments like the bad guys’ bemused “this fuckin guy” reaction to Clint driving right into the back of their car carrier during a chase. It’s some kind of unholy union of cheesy ’80s cop movie and something more distinctive. It gets real weird and I gotta say I did not expect the Sonia Braga assault. And I was really impressed that Clint and his screenwriters were able to give Sheen a shocking shift to badassness. Definitely the most badass scene in the movie is all him, Clint’s not even there.

(Careful, I’m about to spoil the best part)

When Ackerman really needs to take it up a notch to save Pulovski he goes into this bar and nobody’s giving him the information he wants. I expected him to go Dirty and rough some people up. I did not expect him to abruptly blow flames in the bartender’s face, shoot a whole bunch of people, throw one fighting dog and fill another one with lead, and burn the entire building to the ground. Not only is it hilariously overboard but it’s all masterfully set up in earlier scenes: the geography of the bar, the prior humiliation by the people there, the dog fights in the back room, even the possession of the lighter (to light Pulovski’s cigars). I love this type of carefully constructed action scene. They build the foundation before they put up the building. Not everybody bothers with the foundation, so I respect that.

Therefore let me be the first person in history to tip somebody’s hat to the writers of this one, Scott Spiegel and Boaz Yakin. Those are the guys who wrote FROM DUSK TILL DAWN 2. Spiegel helped write EVIL DEAD 2 and Yakin directed this movie called FRESH that I’ll be reviewing next. He also wrote the Lundgren version of THE PUNISHER but says the producer just kept the plot and rewrote everything else. Maybe the bar scene was some of the leftover punishment that didn’t make it into that movie.

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Actually, this one isn’t all that bad, for one thing it can get away with not being in 3-D. Unlike Scream 3 it has an excuse because it’s straight to video, and I mean who the fuck wants to sit at home by yourself wearing 3-D glasses. I mean give me a fuckin break.

Anyway this western doesn’t really “hang together” as the famous shoplifting critic Rex Reed might say but it does have its moments which is a hell of a lot more than you can say for most straight to video part 3s in my opinion. The opening to be specific is very strong, with an obvious Sergio Leone influence. It’s in the desert with bright, bleached out photographication and lots of heightened sound effects. You hear the wind and the rattlesnakes and the incessant clicking of guns like you just hooked your hearing aid up to a car battery.

This sequence introduces all of the characters in a crowd where the outlaw Madrid is about to be hung. Pretty much all of the execution fans in the area have shown up for this one and they are very excited – little nod to Mr. Sam Peckinpah a famous film poet who liked to aim his camera at man’s thirst for blood. The hangman of course is also a bloodthirsty motherfucker and he’s so comfortable wearing an executioner’s hood that when Madrid spits on it, he wipes it off as if it were on his skin. Then his daughter, a pretty young gal named Esmeralda tries to watch the hanging and he says, “You disobey me to my face?” and then, trying to hype up the crowd I guess, he yanks her on stage and starts lashing her with a whip. I mean, Jesus. I’m as much for spanking a kid as the next child abuser but this guy is going too far in my opinion. Figures, though – just like a fucking hangman.

Of course, Madrid escapes from being hanged and takes Esmeralda with him, and there is a pretty nice shootout with funny gimmicks like knives that pop out of Madrid’s boots, and a horse that gets shot, and there are just dozens of people trying to shoot this Madrid and they all end up shooting each other and there are little chunks of meat that fly off when they get hit. Just like old times.

Unfortunately it loses its energy and inventiveness after that opening and most of the rest is PRETTY fucking bland except for the occasional disembowelment or impalement or explodamation. There are some unexpected twists that I thought were clever, for example you assume hangman is a bad guy but it turns out there’s a pretty good reason why he whips his daughter. I mean, about as good of a reason as you could have for something like that.

The best part though involves this annoying preacher character. If you’re gonna rent the movie don’t keep reading because this is the only real moment of greatness in the picture and I’m about to ruin it for you. This guy is a tightass in front of his wife, he is easily offended and when a bartender asks him what he wants to drink he asks for water. So I mean I wasn’t born yesterday, I’m not surprised when he later wanders off and starts pounding shots of tequila and drooling over a variety of extramarital titties. We’ve seen all that before both in films and in bars.

But what is surprising is when this pansy suddenly asks the bartender “What’s your policy on fighting in this establishment?”, the bartender hands him a big stick and he starts whoopin the living shit out of a big thug from earlier in the movie. Then thug #2 comes in with a knife to the throat of the preacher’s wife. “Let him go, or I’ll fix your little bitch, cabron!”

Without a moment’s hesitation the preacher pulls a big hunting knife out of his boot, rams it down thug #1’s throat, out the back of his head and into the table. Then he points at the thug holding his wife and yells, “You’re next, asshole!”

That, my friends, is what the art of Badass Cinema is all about and it is a shame that the rest of the picture does not match this level of achievement. I do admire their attempts to go real out there and freaky assed with the twists, like I don’t want to give anything away but for some reason this turns from a cowboy movie to a vampire movie about halfway through. I mean that is pretty fucking weird in my opinion but you gotta admire a part 3 that takes risks like that, I think a lot of fans of the other two will be disappointed because they only like cowboy movies and not vampire movies, but the filmmakers know there are some of us out here who like both and you know if life hands you eggs, you gotta break a few if you want to make omelettes.

Anyway, it will be interesting to see what will happen in part 4. The hangman’s daughter turns into this character Santanico the vampire princess, and the hangman said that he tried to kill her when she was a little girl but she just kept coming back. So this is definitely a more powerful vampire than the others and I really don’t know HOW the fuck they are gonna be able to kill her, if at all. It will be tough so I look forward to seeing how they pull it off in part 4, even though this one wasn’t that great.

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