In the early days of his legendary career, Clint Eastwood dominated the silver screen with larger-than-life men of action. Whether he’s the lone stranger flipping a town on its head in High Plains Drifter or serving justice with a .44 Magnum in Dirty Harry, Eastwood’s characters are rarely ever flawed. But every once in a while, he would find a role that allowed him to play a different shade of his otherwise established persona.
On the surface, 1977’s action-thriller road movie The Gauntlet had Eastwood once again playing a cop fighting injustice. Only this time, he is not a Magnum-toting badass who gets results. In the rare case of playing against type, Eastwood is the underdog in an ill-advised detail full of violence, personality clashes, and a level of excessive force from the law that remains disturbing to watch today.
Clint Eastwood Is The Ultimate Underdog In ‘The Gauntlet’
Eastwood plays Ben Shockley, a Phoenix detective and alcoholic loser assigned to extradite prostitute Gus Mally (Sondra Locke) out of Las Vegas for a mafia trial where she has been called upon to testify. Shockley is informed by his boss Edgar Blakelock (William Prince) that the case itself is insignificant, as is the witness. Though it seems like a regular day at the office, Shockley begins to question the seriousness of the assignment when Vegas bookies take bets on Mally’s survival.
Shockley and Mally become entangled in a relentless fight for survival as the unlikely pair must evade the authorities after the detective gets framed for kidnapping and attempted murder. As the two become closer romantically, Shockley learns of Blakelock’s ties with the mob, with Mally as the lone witness who can point him out at trial. On the wrong side of the law, to do the right thing, Shockley has to blast through a gauntlet of highly armed cops back to Phoenix to get Mally to court.
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Before this film, Eastwood rarely ever played a character at the lower end of life. His characters often stand tall against the system, whether he wore a badge or not. Unlike Dirty Harry, who had a victim’s rights code against an establishment that does more to protect the offender, Shockley could care less about a code. He would rather drink and play poker than do his job, as evidenced in his introductory scene with Blakelock. Yet deep down, he’s been waiting for the one big case to make his career after years of being sidelined by the force. Shockley’s expendable ways make him the perfect fall guy for Blakelock to assign him on the ill-fated extradition.
Similarly, Locke’s Mally has all the odds against her. Aside from the threat to her life, Mally is a constant victim of male chauvinism between Shockley, Blakelock, and the various male characters with a lowly view of her profession. But Mally is far smarter than most men, which ultimately earns Shockley’s respect and affection. Their true bonding moment comes when Mally questions the manhood of a perverted deputy while Shockley holds him captive on the road. Her revelation of being a college graduate, as well as her close bond with her mother from afar, shows she’s too good to be caught up in this world.
‘The Gauntlet’ Depicts Excessive Police Militarization
As his sixth directorial effort, The Gauntlet was Eastwood’s biggest action movie up to that point. Channeling the films of Sam Peckinpah, the film is full of large-scale shootouts, a chase sequence between Eastwood’s motorcycle and a police chopper, and a brutal fight scene with bikers on a moving train. But it’s the scenes of fully armed police surrounding Shockley and Mally that remain the most disturbing today. The Gauntlet depicts an early look at police militarization when the pair are fired upon in a house, inspired by a 1974 incident where the LAPD descended on the location of the Symbonese Liberation Army. To apprehend two suspects with one gun, the police shred the house with thousands of rounds to the point of collapsing it. The scene sets the stage for the big finale involving Shockley’s rigged-up armored bus against an entire police squad in Phoenix. Not only is it the ultimate underdog moment for Eastwood’s character, but it also shows the very extent that the powers in authority will go to fulfill a mission for personal, and often political, gain.
The Gauntlet is about two losers who give each other confidence as well as a little romance to overcome insurmountable odds. The chemistry between the real-life couple at the time, Eastwood and Locke, carried through four more films before their public split in 1990. Adding to Eastwood’s legacy, the iconic actor/director will be producing a remake in 2025 starring Tom Cruise and Scarlett Johansson under the direction of Christopher McQuarrie (Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning). For now, it seems the legendary icon is as unstoppable as the characters he’s portrayed for as long as we can remember.
The Gauntlet is available to stream on Prime Video in the U.S.
The Gauntlet
A hard but mediocre cop is assigned to escort a prostitute into custody from Las Vegas to Phoenix, so that she can testify in a mob trial. But a lot of people are literally betting that they won’t make it into town alive.
- Release Date
-
December 21, 1977
- Cast
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Clint Eastwood
, Sondra Locke
, Pat Hingle
, William Prince
, Bill McKinney
, Michael Cavanaugh - Runtime
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109 minutes
Watch on Prime
