Tightrope
                              
Director: Richard Tuggle/ Clint Eastwood (uncredited)
Year: 1984
Rating: 4.5
The line between good and evil. Between darkness and light. It is a wobbly tightrope referring to the title that we all walk and it is as easy to fall to one side as to the other. Detective Block shifts back and forth. In the daylight when he is with his two girls, but into the kinky night when he prowls the seedy side of New Orleans. The strip clubs, the brothels, the come-ons from the shadows, the role playing, the female oil wrestling with a midget referee, the handcuffs and the whips. The sexiest the film ever gets is when a beautiful blonde sucks a popsicle. Block is drawn to that life like the proverbial moth and gives into it but he is a cop looking for a serial killer. The two sides to him blur as the killer gets closer and closer to him. Clint Eastwood plays Block as a man who is a good loving father but knowingly crosses the line and covers it up when his investigation intersects with the women he knows.



The film and Eastwood received some acclaim for the film - based mainly I think for having Eastwood in such a conflicted role and the ambience of sin and sloth in the Big Easy. But otherwise, I thought the script was absolutely pedestrian and tedious. It holds no surprises and goes exactly where you fear it will. It starts off that way and I groaned. A young woman on her own is walking through these empty streets at night - block after block - never a soul to be seen, not a store open, no lights on anywhere. I just wanted to yell, take a taxi. Are you an idiot. And sure enough she becomes victim number one.  Could a film start off in a more mundane movie of the week way? And it keeps going down that well-trod road.



Block is divorced from his wife and got custody of the two little girls (the older one played by his real-life daughter). The divorce sent him off to the dark side of New Orleans where a cop gets goodies for free. The women seem more than willing. As his investigation takes him into that world, he makes use of his time to have sex with the women he questions. It's the Big Easy and so is sex with prostitutes. Then home to his sleeping kids. But then the movie - in my opinion - just decides to hit every cliche in the book. The killer, always in strange hideous masks, begins to follow Block and kill the girls he was with. Why? A reason as flimsy as a new spider's web. Don't serial killers have better things to do?



But it is a film cliché that was tired a long time ago. In real life has this ever happened? But probably in a 100 films. Block begins slowly to realize that there is a connection but decides it is a good time to begin romancing a rape victim counselor played by Geneviève Bujold. Wouldn't it be shocking if the killer targeted her and then his family. No, that would be too preposterous. Of course, he does. And he is one of those movie villains who knows everything and is always a step ahead. Please get me out of this movie. Bring it to a merciful end. I wonder if the New Orleans Tourist Board promoted this film? I can see guys making a bee-line to New Orleans.