User Reviews

In Phoenix, the alcoholic and mediocre detective Ben Shockley (Clint Eastwood) is assigned by the Chief Commissary Blakelock (William Prince) to bring the witness Gus Mally (Sondra Locke) from Las Vegas for a minor trial. Shockley travels to Vegas and finds that Gus Malley is an aggressive and intelligent prostitute with college degree and she tells him that the odds are against her showing up in court.

Shockley learns that she will actually testify against a powerful mobster and the mafia is chasing them trying to kill them both. He calls Blakelock and request a police escort from Phoenix to protect them. But soon he discovers that someone is betraying him in the police department. Now, Shockley and Malley hijack a bus and Shockley welds thick steel plates and transforms the cabin in an armored bus trying to reach the Forum. But they will need to drive through a gauntlet of police officers armed with heavy weapons.

"The Gauntlet" is a highly entertaining movie with a flawed and absurd story. There is no press representative or judge from the tribunal to question the reason for the shooting to stop the bus. The helicopter chasing the motorcycle with the sniper failing in his shots is funny. The situation of the gauntlet in Phoenix is hilarious and the police force is incapable to shoot the bus tires or engine to stop the vehicle. Sondra Locke is very beautiful in the role of a smart prostitute and this is the type of movie that the viewer must shut down his or her brain and have lots of fun. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Rota Suicida" ("Suicide Route")

The challenge of playing the cop, Ben Shockley, in "The Gauntlet" was that the character was virtually the opposite of Harry Callaghan: he's a loser, a man resigned to doing twenty years in the force and then looking forward to collecting his pension… His car is full of empty whiskey bottles, his life is a shambles, he's never even been given a big case let alone solved one… He is sent from Phoenix to Las Vegas to 'bring back a nothing witness for a nothing trial'.

The 'nothing' witness, Gus Mally, is not the man he expects; in the first place she's a woman, Augusta Mally, secondly she's a hooker, thirdly, despite her non-stop profanities, she's a graduate of Finch College and lastly – and hereby hangs the tale – she's not a 'nothing witness'. The mob who are to be tried will do anything to prevent her testifying…

The dangers inherent in their journey together only slow1y become apparent to Shockley despite the fact that the Vegas police literally raze to the ground the couple's initial hideaway, while they remain inside almost to the last moment…

Within the turbulent situation, Shockley and Mally manage to transform their original dislike for each other and each other's way of life into a love of sorts, in the 'African Queen type tradition.' As the couple begins to understand each other, they realize how their relationship could serve each other… She would no longer need to be a whore… He could regain his self-esteem as a policeman… Shortly before the final showdown Mally telephones her mother to say she has found her man; from then on there is an added imperative that they survive in order to give their love and their relationship a chance to work out…

Sondra Locke achieved the improbably-written transformation from hooker to sociologist convincingly… But in this film, more than ever, Eastwood wasn't trying for any praise or approval from the critics; probably the reverse… The overkill is part of the entertainment' he claimed.' You just have to accept it on an outrageous level.' There were those who didn't…

But these comments only served to inform Eastwood that at least he had been excessive enough to upset some people… It would be awful to think you're being outrageous and to outrage nobody… But Eastwood knew just how far he could take an audience with him… By surviving the unsurvivable, Eastwood proved to himself once more that the mass audience will suspend all sensible disbelief – as they do in the best of the Bond films – providing the action carries them and their fantasies along…

In the context of many of his other films, "The Gauntlet" is hardly one of Eastwood's most substantial works… The appeal of an unlikely love affair between opposites, fertilized by an unceasing barrage of gunfire was undoubted1y considerable… But as a whole, the film tended to operate rather as an exercise in special effects than as any more considered piece of social statement of the kind that gave such strength to "Dirty Harry."

I am a Phoenix native and I was on location in May of 1977 when they filmed the scene with the bus going east on Adams before it went up the steps of what was shown in the movie as Phoenix "City Hall", it never was city hall, the building was, and still is the Phoenix Civic Plaza.

The movie has a good plot, but the shooting scenes were a little over-done to the point of silliness, especially the one at Gus Malley's house in Vegas when Las Vegas PD officers fire a storm of bullets into the house that tear it down completely. The scene where Shockley was crawling through the house trying to get away from the firestorm of bullets that are flying all around and tearing up everything next to him, and... he never gets hit(???) What are the odds of that happening? There were other scenes they could have done a better job on, like at the end when Malley shoots Blakelock, and all the police officers behind him just stand there as if nothing was happening instead of getting out of the way of the bullet trajectories.

That's why I thought Eastwood could have done a better job with some of those scenes that were a bit far-fetched from reality. But again, this is Hollywood.

I remember seeing clips of "The Gauntlet" back in about 1983 and being quite impressed by what I saw. Now having had the chance to see this movie properly, it has turned out to be a fairly memorable experience. The thing to keep in mind whilst watching "The Gauntlet," is that the story is fairly standard and has been done before. However, in the hands of Clint Eastwood as star and director, he manages to deliver the goods in terms of sheer entertainment value. The movie has some good direction as well as a good pace. The action scenes are plentiful and just occasionally, a bit of tension can be spotted in the script. Never in one film have I seen so much corruption within the police force and with the politicians. It is all down to Sandra Locke's character and her testimony which could prove to be rather embarrassing to say the least, regarding the authorities. The film isn't without a sense of humour and Eastwood delivers this with his usual "deadpan" approach. Amongst the highlights, are the scenes involving the motorcycle gang, the car journey with the police officer, spending the night inside that cave and the rather explosive climax. I daresay Clint Eastwood realised that "The Gauntlet" film wasn't going to be one of his major ones but his direction is still good.

Possible spoiler - As the bus drives through Phoenix, police line up on either side of the street to empty thousands of rounds into the bus. Literally dozens of policemen are in the line of fire (across the street from each other) and nobody seems to notice.

Also, at the courthouse, as they're again surrounded by dozens of police on ALL sides, Clint gets shot by the bad guy (police standing next to & behind everybody) and NOBODY flinches - apparently certain that bullets at close range don't go through people. Finally, as everybody is lying there bleeding (but not dead) not ONE policeman offers assistance or bothers to start taking all the guns away. Could be the dumbest &^%$%#$#ing movie ever.

The entire police forces from two separate states come out to fire thousands of gun shots at a dimwitted, but well intentioned cop and a college educated, hyperactive hooker because said hooker is going to testify in court that she saw the new police commissioner masturbating. And it gets better.

What do you do when every gangster and peace officer in Arizona and Las Vegas have orders to shoot you on site? First, of course, you increase your list of enemies by unnecessarily agitating a gang of fifty large bikers, then you hijack a bus in broad daylight and spend a half hour unloading luggage, at gunpoint, in full view of hundreds of people, then you provide the people who want to kill you with a written trip syllabus so they know when and where to expect you, and then you drive your bus right into the six hundred cops who are firing non-stop machine guns at you.

And it still gets better. After spending ten minutes firing thousands of shots at a fellow officer and his courtesan friend, on the orders of the new, clearly psychotic commissioner, six hundred heavily armed cops stand and watch, without blinking, as said commissioner is gunned down in the middle of the street by said hooker. And of course, after having more shots fired at them than the population of Iraq, our hapless hero and his hardy harlot humbly hobble away, relatively unscathed.

When Joel Mcrea and Veronica Lake chased a freight train, it defined movie magic. When Charles Grodin and Bobby De Niro chased a freight train, it was a moment to treasure. When Sandra Locke and Clint Eastwood chased a freight train, you might as well have been watching a bad Heckle and Jeckle cartoon. Comparing THE GAUNTLET to past and future Eastwood directorial efforts, like PLAY MISTY FOR ME, MYSTIC RIVER, and UNFORGIVEN is like saying THE GODFATHER in the same breath as GIGLI.

In the 1970s films became more violent. No doubt about it. And The Gauntlet is unquestionably a violent film. Buildings are reduced to rubble, vehicles are shot to pieces, people are pumped full of lead, and plenty of blood is spilled.... all in the name of entertainment! This noisy Clint Eastwood vehicle is good fun, with lots of exciting sequences, though thoroughly unbelievable pretty much from the start.

Honest, hard-working Phoenix cop Ben Shockley (Eastwood) is sent by Comissioner Blakelock (William Prince) to bring in a prostitute who may be able to provide key testimony in a high profile trial. But from the moment Shockley meets Gus Malley (Sondra Locke), he suddenly finds himself in the firing line.... and it's not the usual bad guys who are after him, but the cops. Seems Malley's testimony could implicate a major police figure in sleaze and scandal, and the man in question is none other than Shockley's boss Comissioner Blakelock. Shockley attempts to get his witness back to Phoenix, despite the fact that every cop on the force has been ordered by Blakelock to gun the pair of them down.

The climactic sequence, in which Eastwood and Locke head for Phoenix City Hall in an armour-plated bus while sharp-shooters try to blast the living hell out of the vehicle, is truly astounding. As a destructive set piece not many sequences can rival it even to this day. The film contains many similarly noisy, destructive, memorable scenes. Admittedly, there are times when believability is markedly lacking (e.g the bit where Clint and Sondra are pursued by a helicopter while aboard a motorbike - and the sniper aboard the helicopter repeatedly fails to gun them down). However, on the whole The Gauntlet is good fun. Switch your brain down a gear or two and enjoy....

Ben Shockley is well on his way to becoming a derelict cop when he is assigned to transport a witness named Gus Mally from Las Vegas, Nevada.

Mally turns out to be a prostitute with mob ties and incriminating information regarding a high-placed figure.

Shockley's suspicions are aroused and the betting line against Mally testifying begins to climb when Mally's house is literally shot to pieces.

The pair must face the truth about those they trust, as they fight their way to Phoenix, finally using an armoured bus to run a gauntlet of hundreds of police armed with high-powered weaponry......

The Gauntlet is probably one of the easiest films to watch. It's a great concept that has been copied numerous times, but with Eastwood on Dirty Harry lite mode, and also directed by him, this was one of his more fun films from the seventies.

Locke and Eastwood obviously have great chemistry, and the banter between them is enough to rival that of Midnight Run, another film heavily influenced by this.

Cars get blown up, Eastwood gets seven shades kicked out of him, he looks really cool on a motorbike, and doesn't give a hoot when 100+ cops are firing at him whilst he's on his modified bus.

It's short simple, and pretty tense as they get nearer to their destination.

It's a pretty good tonic to a bad day.

How many rounds of ammunition can you fire into a house before it will collapse? Or maybe you'd like to see how many rounds you can fire into a bus before it will stop running. If you're interested, or if you just like Clint Eastwood, then The Gauntlet is for you! Our film centers around Clint playing a sloppy policeman from Phoenix who is assigned to transport a sassy hooker (Sondra Locke) from Las Vegas back to his jurisdiction. This will not be an easy task. First of all, this Eastwood character is no Dirty Harry. His Ben Shocklee is an alcoholic, and barely capable of doing his job. The hooker's testimony could potentially bring down some important figures, so the cops and mafia also don't want them to return to Phoenix. In addition to all that, the woman is such a bitch that even a trip across town with her would be almost too much to bear. The two are put in one harrowing situation after another as Clint proves that he has the moxy to simply "get the job done".

This film, if made by or starring inferior talent, would be nothing short of ridiculous. Several situations that arise in this film seem improbable at best, and often ludicrous. Eastwood's charm, and the razor-sharp dialog keep it moving along. You end up almost believing it could happen. Clint Eastwood is that talented. His acting and direction are as good as ever.

The film has plenty of memorable scenes. Along with the shootouts, we get some very amusing and often very funny situations. One of my favorites is when Eastwood single-handedly talks an entire motorcycle gang into surrendering one of their bikes or facing the consequences of his pistol. And what would an Eastwood/Locke film be without a scene where she is sexually assaulted? Though disturbing, the scene has a hilarious conclusion. Another scene belongs to Locke, herself. In it, she puts a foul-mouthed police flunky in his place using some very sexually explicit words.

That a film which would seemingly be quite ridiculous on paper is made into such a fine product is a testimony to the genius of Clint Eastwood. He is without a doubt my favorite actor of all time.

9 of 10 stars for The Gauntlet.

The Hound.

This film is one of the dumbest ever. Spoilers If Clint fixed a few Grey Hounds in Black Hawk Down, I am sure all the troops would have made it. This is a 70's the system is bad movie, too the extreme. How corrupt can a police force be to have hundreds of cops shooting at an armor plated bus with a mob informant witness in it. I like escapism, but this is unbelievable! There are a few good scenes in it, like when the house collapses from bullet holes, but nothing, and I mean nothing could save this one. Even Rambo! I give this a 4/10.