The Dead Pool ** (1988, Clint Eastwood, Patricia Clarkson, Liam Neeson) – Classic Movie Review 3813

Clint Eastwood said: ‘It’s fun, once in a while, to have a character you can go back to. It’s like revisiting an old friend you haven’t seen for a long time. You figure I’ll go back and see how he feels about things now.’ The fifth and final Dirty Harry movie might have been fun for Eastwood, but not so much for the audience as the star gives a weary performance and seems virtually to sleepwalk through the movie.

Storywise, it is weary and sleepy too,  as Steve Sharon’s screenplay plays out like a contrived and mechanically plotted Seventies TV movie, in which this time Inspector Callaghan investigates a series of serial killings by a mystery murderer nick-named The Dead Pool Killer, which are linked to a weird bet among the members of a film crew.

All the intended victims’ names are included on a death threat master list of of local celebrities called The Dead Pool. The list is handed out and bets are being taken on who will be the first to die. And of course soon Harry’s name is next.

The movie’s moderate story was conceived by three of Eastwood’s gym buddies – Sandy Shaw, Durk Pearson and Steve Sharon (in their only screenwriting credit).

On the plus side, Liam Neeson has a good time as a real baddie, Peter Swan, the director of a horror flick. And there is one great sequence – a San Francisco chase (parodying Bullitt) between a bomb-carrying toy car and Dirty Harry’s real auto.

Although disappointingly routine and just hokum when Dirty Harry started out as much, much more, the film is entertaining enough to make the day for action fans. It proved the least successful of the Dirty Harry movies. Dirty Harry had made our day but it was finally time for him to call it a day.

It follows Dirty Harry (1971), Magnum Force (1973), The Enforcer (1976) and Sudden Impact (1983).

Jim Carrey has a small early role that give him three days’s work. When he auditioned, he did his Vegas Elvis Presley act, which cracked up Eastwood, who also cast him in Pink Cadillac (1989) performing his Post-Nuclear Elvis Lounge Act.

The movie critic who gets killed is based on Pauline Kael. who, reviewng the first Dirty Harry (1971) film, accused Don Siegel and Clint Eastwood of making a fascist and racist film.

Eastwood has since stated he has no interest in making another Dirty Harry film. He said: ‘Dirty Harry VI! Harry is retired. He’s standing in a stream, fly-fishing. He gets tired of using the pole – and ba-boom! Or Harry is retired, and he catches bad guys with his walker?’

Rob Liefeld said the film’s title inspired his Marvel Comics anti-hero character Deadpool.

Crew member’s names were used as names on The Dead Pool master list of intended victims, including director of photography Jack Green, assistant film editor Michael Cipriano and chief lighting technician Thomas Stern.

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© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3813

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