Tightrope (1984)

Of course it is hard for New Orleans police detective Wes Block (Clint Eastwood) to catch the serial killer on the loose in the city - he is one of those badly drawn 80s-movie serial killers with an everchanging modus operandi, neither disorganised nor organised, at times a random targetter of women on the streets and at other times a player of diabolical games of cat-and-mouse who ends up a balaclava-ed home invader - and it is the macho 80s, so every single woman in this movie is coquettish and aching for it, and it doesn't matter how crotchetty and old and wrinkled the men are or how revolting their come-on lines are, the women are desperate to please - wait to hear Block's attempts at wooing the rape prevention instructor, Beryl Thibodeaux (the only woman in it who isn't a street walker) when they lunch together by the New Orleans' harbour, and wait and baulk when she becomes interested! - and keep in mind Block knows by this stage a serial killer is targeting the women he beds, but I guess Thibodeaux wants it so bad, Block simply has no choice, despite the obvious danger, to scratch her itch like a hero.

★★★☆☆

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In The Line Of Fire (1990)

What I like about Wolfgang Petersen's action thriller is how human it is, about an assassin (John Malkovich) determined to kill the President: Clint Eastwood's security guy fulfills his action hero duties, hanging from the edge of buildings and leaping into the path of bullets, but all the while he grizzles like the old man he is, has clumsy sexual encounters, gets sick, crankily dismisses the psychological games his quarry plays, and generally stays down-to-earth, which is refreshing given all the other bionically- and super-power-enhanced heroes saturating our cinemas.

★★★★☆

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Sully (2016)

This workmanlike Clint Eastwood-directed movie tells the story of the 2009 emergency landing of US Airways Flight 1549 on the Hudson River after the plane hit a flock of geese and even though it is all still fresh in our minds and we all know very well the miraculous outcome and the celebrity status achieved by the pilot, Chesley Sullenberger, it still proves as engrossing as any episode of Mayday/Air Crash Investigations, to see how the aviation investigation played out behind the media frenzy. 

★★★☆☆

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Gran Torino (2008)

The world adored this movie about a grumpy Korean War veteran living next door to a family of Hmong immigrants but I thought it resembled a well-intentioned but dramatically flat community service announcement - and a badly edited one at that. 

★☆☆☆☆

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