The Best and Worst of Clint Eastwood

“The Best and Worst of” series chronicles the career highlights and lowlights of an actor starring in one of the week's new theatrical releases. This week, I take a look at the filmography of “The Mule” star Clint Eastwood.

Films starring Clint Eastwood that I've seen:
A Fistful of Dollars
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Dirty Harry
Unforgiven
Million Dollar Baby
Gran Torino
Trouble with the Curve

Best Performance: Gran Torino (2008)
The first stop on Eastwood's Cher-like prolonged farewell tour was a seriously brilliant one. As a bigoted Korean War vet who develops an unlikely relationship with a Hmong teenager (Bee Vang) in his Detroit neighborhood following the death of his wife, his signature gruffness, subtle vulnerability and underrated gift for delivering snarky one-liners are on display to the fullest extent, and that well-rounded performance helps make Gran Torino a compelling, stunningly heartwarming drama that I'll never forget.

Worst Performance: Dirty Harry (1971)
This is a blueprint on how to not play an action movie lead. Dirty Harry is a stiff, overly gritty tough guy character that desperately needed some charisma or over-the-top diabolical menace to become interesting.

Best Film: Unforgiven (1992)
Outside of John Wayne, there's probably no one more synonymous with westerns than Eastwood. While he's appeared in no shortage of great ones over the course of his career, I believe he saved his best for last with Unforgiven.  Not only does this film deliver the gloomy atmosphere and tense bursts of action you've come to expect with Eastwood's contributions to the genre, it also serves as a poignant reflection on the long-term effects violence has on the human psyche and mankind's crippling inability to change their ways.

Worst Film: Dirty Harry (1971)
Anytime the topic of overrated movies comes up, Dirty Harry is always one of the first titles that enters my mind. If you catch me on the right day, it might even be the first one I think of. To put it simply, I hate the shit out of this movie. This isn't a case of something aging terribly either, Dirty Harry is just a straight-up staggering failure as an action thriller. The pacing is sluggish, the tone is laughably stoic, the narrative is jumbled to the point where it barely makes sense and the limited action that occurs looks like it was shot on one of those grainy cameras that ruled the porn shoots of this era. Truly wretched stuff.  

Thank you for reading this week's edition of “The Best and Worst of”. The next victim of my praise and ire will be “Mary Poppins Returns” star Meryl Streep.