Infinity Gauntlet

The Gauntlet (1977) is one of those Clint Eastwood movies that we've never seen, but figured we would eventually. So here goes.

Drunk, semi-washed-up police detective Clint Eastwood gets an assignment to go to Las Vegas and collect a prisoner to bring them back to Phoenix. He's pretty happy to be getting this plum, easy assignment, since he showed up late for work after an all night bender. But when he gets to Las Vegas, he discovers that the prisoner is 1) going to testify against powerful, connected figures and 2) is Sondra Locke. She tells him that there is a bounty on her head, and the bookmakers are giving long odds against her surviving to testify.

He doesn't believe her, until the car that he was going to take her to the airport in is shot up to hell and gone - and by the police. So now he knows what he's dealing with. They go to her house and find themselves surrounded by police. While they sneak out through a bolt hole, the police open fire - and fill the house so full of holes that it collapses. So we know what we're dealing with.

They go on the lam together, meet up with some bikers, etc. Finally, Eastwood hijacks a bus at gunpoint, then builds a heavy iron box for the driver and a passenger, and announces that he is bringing Locke in, giving the route he'll be taking - so the corrupt police set up the titular gauntlet, lining the streets with officers firing into the bus as it approaches. I'm not sure why Eastwood chose this tactic - I thought it was a diversion at first, with Locke arriving in a cab while the police concentrated on the bus. But no - he just wanted to do it the hard way.

Eastwood's character is pretty obnoxious and a bit misogynistic throughout, but I guess he was supposed to be. Locke has a better role, scared but tough, a hooker with a heart, not of gold but a human heart. Neither of them are winning any acting awards, I'm afraid.

What this movie really wants to do it spend long minutes pumping an infinite number of bullets into a car, a house, and a bus. In this, it succeeds.

In conclusion, should we watch Bruce Willis in Sixteen Blocks?