Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8630 in VHS
• Released on: 1997-06-23
• Rating: Suitable for 18 years and over
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of tapes: 1
• Running time: 110 minutes

Synopsis
Clint Eastwood stars as Wes Block, a tough New Orleans cop-cum-single-parent with a dark side to his nature.

Customer Reviews

Does not seem to fade with age
There is nothing original in this 1984 film in New Orleans. We have seen it all. The ex-cop turned serial killer after a long sojourn in prison for rape. The woman activist who is teaching self defense to other women. The divorced father who is taking care of two girls. The victims chosen among the female haphazard or not of the main cop who arrested him a long time ago, in order to get even with him, to get his revenge. The Mardi Gras turned into crime peddling. The three cops keeping one woman under surveillance and protection killed one after the other and the woman assaulted. Etc. So what makes this film special? The cool character of the inspector, slow and fast at the same time, Pondering and following his instinct at some other time. Professional and yet yielding to prostitutes a little too easily and too often, and forgetting his ties on the place of intercourse. Having a problem explaining his younger daughter what a hard-on is. And the word is used twice in the film. There is also the perfect well built suspense founded and built on the shoes and the color of the shoelaces of the criminal. The absolute ruthlessness of this killer who enjoys raping his victims before they die by strangulation and then even eating a cookie and having a cup of coffee. That nonchalance is rarely expected nor found in a serial killer, though he may become so used to his deeds that follow a strict scenario that he may become easy-going about it. That's why the film is perfectly entertaining and Bourbon street on Mardi Gras is so colorful and fascinating. We would like every day to be a Mardi Gras, even if that is the paradise of murderers who can disguise the way they want and be absolutely unseen, invisible. And it all holds with a red silk ribbon. Marvelous detail that makes the film nearly sentimental, like the red badge of courage turned perverse and sociopathic.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines, CEGID

Superb Eastwood
In one of his less well known roles Clint Eastwood again shows that he is always prepared to do the unexpected with his acting. He plays Wes Block, a cop who is trying to catch a serial killer with liking for kinky sex.
The trouble for Wes is that so does he, and in fact he frequents the same places and meets the same women as the killer. Genevieve Bujold plays the rape counsellor who becomes involved with Wes and theres a noteably good performance from Clint Eastwood's daughter who plays one of Wes's two daughters in the film.

Its a brave performance from Eastwood and the whole film is really quite an edgy thriller. From memory I was convinced Eastwood directed this, but seeing it again recently I realised he didn't. So credit to the actual director who did a fine job.

Eastwood was 54 when this was made. If I can be as good shape as he was at that age I'll be a very happy man!

Why this isn't available on region 2 seperately I don't know, as its a better film than most of the Dirty Harry sequels. No doubt it'll be reissued again eventually. Highly recommended.

Dark, Menacing, and Ambiguous

To me, this film is even more impressive today than it was when I first saw it. Frankly, when seeing it 20 years ago, I was thrown off-balance by the character whom Eastwood plays, Wes Block, a police detective in New Orleans. He pursues a serial killer of prostitutes, a psychopath with whom he seems to share similar psycho-sexual preoccupations. Presumably this was a risky part for Eastwood to take on. Under skillful but deferential direction by Richard Tuggle, he explores with great skill certain depraved tendencies within himself which were much more shocking in 1984 than they seem to be, regrettably, two decades later. Block's personal situation is complicated even more by the fact that he a single parent, raising two daughters. It is also important to remember that his personal conduct creates the risk of compromising his professional integrity as a law enforcement officer. For these and other reasons, Block is a much more enigmatic character than, for example, Harry ("what you see is what you get") Callahan.

In the role of Beryl Thibodeaux, Genevieve Bujold portrays a criminal psychologist who is attracted to Block as they work together even as she begins to sense and then contend with at least some of the demons which torment him. So much of this film occurs (both literally and symbolically) in darkness. Even a trained professional such as Thibodeaux is frustrated in her attempts to understand someone for whom she feels sincere affection. Special credit should be given to Bruce Surtees for superb cinematography which is coordinated seamlessly with the often depressing storyline. He had worked with Eastwood in previous films which include Dirty Harry (1971), Play Misty for Me (also 1971), Pale Rider (1975), and The Outlaw Josie Wales (1976). The supporting cast is excellent, notably Eastwood's own daughter Alison who plays Amanda Block in the film, and Dan Hadeya as Detective Molinari. Eventually, after the serial killer kidnaps Amanda, her distraught and enraged father pursues her to a riveting conclusion when....

Others are much better qualified than I to express this opinion but I think Wes Block is a character which begins a new transition for Eastwood the actor. Thereafter, the characters he plays tend to be of the "sadder but wiser" variety, much less self-assured, more fatalistic in their view of the world, skeptical and sometimes cynical, reluctant to trust anyone or anything, and are -- for me, therefore -- much more interesting. This is an especially upsetting film which has lost little (if any) of its dramatic impact. More than twenty years after its initial release and probably because I have become a grandfather, there are certain situations in Tightrope which are even more upsetting to me now than ever before.