THE DEAD POOL
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1988 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: There is a slightly lighter touch to the new "Dirty Harry" film, but otherwise it is the strict "Dirty Harry" formula, including lots of action and impossible escapes. Eastwood takes potshots at the bad guys, TV news, and horror movies. Rating: +1.
Dirty Harry is back in THE DEAD POOL. I don't have to tell you what kind of film it is. There just isn't a whole lot of variation from one "Dirty Harry" film to the next. There are car chases, there are explosions, there is a violent murderer, there are machine gunnings. (Hey, an aside here. At one point thugs go after Harry with machine guns. When the machine guns hit a car door they make a nice regular perforation; when they hit a windshield they make holes in a random pattern as if from single-shot guns, and even with a machine gun, the thugs can't seem to hit Harry. They swiss-cheese his car and Harry steps out without a scratch. I guess that too is a hallmark of a "Dirty Harry" film.) In fact, the only thing really new is the jokes. And one of the best of these is borrowed from from GARDENS OF STONE.
This time around the plot involves a convicted Mafioso who has it in for Harry, an attractive TV news reporter, and the murder of a rock star on the set of the new ripoff film of a cult horror film director (uh, he calls it an "homage"), Before it is over the film will take pot shots at the invulnerability of Mafiosi and the standards of TV news reporting, but it will save its biggest salvo for how nasty and violent horror films are. (I am sure that Mr. Eastwood, sensitive soul that he is, would never allow violence to creep into one of his films.) We also see three people blown up in explosions, two people carved with knives, and one extremely hypocritical actor playing the lead.
It is good to see Evan C. Kim getting a major role as Harry's new partner. Kim did a hilarious imitation of Bruce Lee in KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE and in the interim I remember him only in HOLLYWOOD VICE SQUAD. Beyond that there is some creativity in THE DEAD POOL, including the only car chase I have really enjoyed since FOUL PLAY (in spite of the fact that it makes little sense), some wildly improbable escapes for Harry and a new "mean line" to replace "Make my day." All in all, it is a "new 'Dirty Harry' film," even if that is an oxymoron. Rate it a +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
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