Synopsis
Phoenix cop Ben Shockley is well on his way to becoming a derelict when he is assigned to transport a witness from Las Vegas. The witness turns out to be a belligerent prostitute with mob ties—and incriminating information regarding a high-ranking figure.
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Cast
- Clint EastwoodBen Shockley
- Sondra LockeGus Mally
- Pat HingleJosephson
- William PrinceBlakelock
- Bill McKinneyConstable
- Michael CavanaughFeyderspiel
- Carole CookWaitress
- Mara CordayJail Matron
- Doug McGrathBookie
- Jeff MorrisDesk Sergeant
Recommendations
- 75
Chicago Sun-Times
The Gauntlet is classic Clint Eastwood: fast, furious, and funny. It tells a cheerfully preposterous story with great energy and a lot of style, and nobody seems more at home in this sort of action movie than Eastwood. - 70
Time Out
The well paced script is an effective mixture of worldliness and naïveté: despite the couple's graphic sparring scenes, in which Eastwood more than meets his match, their relationship remains curiously innocent; a kind of fugitive romanticism pervades. - 70
Newsweek
For all its violence - the movie has an almost fetishistic fascination with the destructive power of gunfire - the mayhem in The Gauntlet is as harmless as a comic book. You don't believe a minute of it, but at the end of the quest, it's hard not to chuckle and cheer. [02 Jan 1978, p.59] - 63
Washington Post
Vicious and hypocritical as it is, The Gauntlet remains an entertaining sort of disreputable show, considerably more proficient and interesting than junk melodramas in a dogged vein. - 63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
As slow as Eastwood appears onscreen, he's learned a thing or two about fast pacing as a director. The action is frequent, occasionally inventive, and, aided by some searing trumpet playing on the soundtrack by Art Pepper, fairly tense. Unfortunately, he overdoes it. [23 Dec 1977] - 60
The New York Times
It is a movie without a single thought in its head, but its action sequences are so ferociously staged that it's impossible not to pay attention most of the time. - 60
Variety
In a major role reversal, Clint Eastwood stars in The Gauntlet as a person who might be on the receiving end of the violence epitomized in his famed Dirty Harry film series. - 50
The New Yorker
You look at the screen even though there's nothing to occupy your mind--the way you sometimes sit in front of the TV, numbly, because you can't rouse yourself for the effort it takes to go to bed.
