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The Dead Pool | Year: 1988 Classification: Action/Adventure Directed: - Buddy Van Horn Actors/Actresses: - Jim Carrey - Clint Eastwood - Liam Neeson "You're s*** out of luck!" That phrase replaces "Make my day" and "This is a .44 magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world..." as the new one-liner in this solid final chapter to the classic Dirty Harry series. When one sees a sequel to a movie as great as DIRTY HARRY (1971), you can't expect it to be as good as the original. But you can expect it to further evolve Clint's classic character and provide good action and deadpan humor. THE DEAD POOL delivers on both counts. In this movie (which SCREAM 3 seemed to borrow heavily from) a murderer obsessed with the films of Peter Swan (played convincingly by Liam Neeson of DARKMAN fame), a horror movie veteran, takes his identity and begins to commit murders similar to those in the movies. Like in THE ENFORCER, the third part in the series, Inspector 'Dirty' Harry Callahan is teamed up with a minority for a partner to "make the department's image look better. However, the partner chemistry here is far less forced than in ENFORCER and is very entertaining. THE DEAD POOL is a movie that will make your... well, you know the rest. Dip into The Dead Pool, you won't be disappointed. The Dead Pool appears to be the last Dirty Harry adventure, which is a good thing. It lets the series go out with an entertaining sleeper hit of a movie. The death of a rock star on a low budget horror movie set seems routine until a member of the production crew is killed in an unrelated crime. Turns out that the rock star was on a betting list of sorts, whomever has guessed the most high risk celebrities to have died during production wins the pool. And Harry Callahan, thanks to his recent arrest and conviction (a series first by the way) of a high profile mafioso, is on the director's list. Harry is not amused, especially since it turns out that a psycho has decided to tilt the pool in the director's favor. The Dead Pool is more than a bit tongue in cheek. On several occasions it comes close to making fun of itself. Still the suspense and action level is quite high and the pathology of the psycho killer is refreshing in its realism. Highly recommended. It's Time, Harry, It's Time This is the last of five "Dirty Harry" films in which Eastwood stars as a San Francisco police detective. By the time of its initial release (in 1988), Eastwood had aged and times had changed but Callahan's non-negotiaable values and unorthodox methods had remained essentially the same. In this film, he investigates a pool which attracts bets on which of eight celebrities will be killed. (Several are.) Although this basic premise is implausible, Callahan takes full advantage of every opportunity to accuse the news media of glorifying, hence encouraging (albeit unintentionally) serial killings by focusing so much attention on them. Samantha Walker (Patricia Clarkson) is a case in point. Given the power of her personality on television and the thrust of her ambitions for a career in journalism, she is an obvious "target" for Callahan's criticisms of the news media. (Of course, she and he become involved romantically.) There are humorous elements and moments such as Liam Neeson playing a horror film director and the remote control toy car which pursues Callahan for several blocks, obviously a parody of car chases in Bullitt and other films. Lalo Schiflin's musical score is quite effective. Other than Neeson, however, most of the cast members seem listless under Buddy Van Horn's direction. (Yes, that's Jim Carrey in the role of Johnny Squares, one of the victims.) The fact that much of this film seems tired or recycled suggests to me that it's time for the Callahan series to be retire. It has been commercially successful while enabling Eastwood to refine his acting and (in Sudden Impact, 1983) directing skills. People are still buying or renting one or more of the five films, all of which also appear on television, so it looks like Callahan will be with us for many years to come. Among the many reasons I admire Clint Eastwood so much is the fact that, as he as become older, he has allowed that to be indicated on screen; better yet, he has played roles appropriate to his age and addressed aging issues in many of them. Most other actors (and yes, actresses) star in many films over a period of many years during which the aging process takes its toll on them. However, given the skills of make-up specialists and what new cosmetic technologies make possible, these actors (and actresses) continue to portray characters many years younger than they. Often, older male actors are cast opposite a romantic lead young enough to be their daughter. That is seldom true of older female actors. By the way, I still think Erica Barry should have selected Julian Mercer rather than Harry Sanborn in Something's Gotta Give. Apparently Eastwood agrees with Harry Callahan: "A man's got to know his limitations." Consider the evolution of the Eastwood persona from Tightrope (1984) through Unforgiven (1992), In the Line of Fire (1993), The Bridges of Madison County (1995), and Absolute Power (1997) to True Crime (1999) and Space Cowboys (2000). Hopefully other ro Buy The Dead Pool at Amazon.com Buy posters at Allposters.com Jamster - the latest ringtones for your phone!  Search with Walhello on the Internet on The Dead Pool Search with the Priority Search Engine on The Dead Pool This page in other languages: Suomeksi | Nederlands | Deutsch
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