| Tightrope | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Richard Tuggle |
| Produced by | Clint Eastwood Fritz Manes |
| Written by | Richard Tuggle |
| Starring | Clint Eastwood Geneviève Bujold Dan Hedaya Alison Eastwood |
| Music by | Lennie Niehaus |
| Studio | The Malpaso Company |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
| Release date(s) | August 17, 1984 (USA) |
| Running time | 115 minutes |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $47,392,179 (USA) |
Tightrope is a 1984 American suspense thriller produced by and starring Clint Eastwood and written and directed by Richard Tuggle.
Contents |
A young woman walks home from her birthday party. She is stalked by a man in distinctive sneakers. After dropping one of her presents, a police officer offers to see her to her door. The camera reveals that the policeman is wearing the stalker's sneakers. The next day, divorced New Orleans police detective Wes Block is throwing a football with his daughters Penny and Amanda. They take in a stray dog, adding to the several strays they have already taken in. As the family gets ready to go to a Saints game, Block gets summoned to a crime scene, and he must break his plans with his daughters.
The young woman has been strangled in her bed. Her killer left no fingerprints, but he waited in her apartment until midnight to kill her, even pausing to make himself coffee. Block visits a brothel where the woman worked, and interviews a prostitute with whom she would perform group sex. The prostitute seduces Block, loosening his necktie. As she performs oral sex on him, he lightly chokes her with his tie, which he accidentally leaves behind.
The woman is already the second victim in as many days. The murderer rapes his victims, and he has been leaving behind a great deal of forensic evidence, including a residue of glass fragments and barley. Beryl Thibodeaux runs a rape prevention program, and she advises Block on the case. The third victim is also a sex worker, and she is strangled in a jacuzzi. Block tracks down one of her co-workers and interviews her while the two prepare to have sex. He handcuffs the woman to the bed.
While Block inquires about the victims at another brothel, he has sex with a prostitute. The hidden killer watches Block and the prostitute. The next morning, Block is called to the scene of a fourth victim. He is shocked to realize that it is the prostitute he had been with the night before. Under the guise of working on the case, Block flirts with Thibodeaux, and the two spend the rest of the day together.
The killer taunts Block by sending a doll with a note, which directs him to another brothel. Once there, a dominatrix informs Block that an unknown man has hired her to be whipped by Block. She is then supposed to send Block to a gay bar. At the bar, Block meets up with a man who has also been hired by the killer to have sex with Block. Block instructs the man to pick up his pay as scheduled, hoping to catch the killer. However, Block is too late, and the man is killed.
The killer kidnaps the friend of the third victim, and he dumps her body in a public fountain. On a nearby statue, he drapes Block's abandoned necktie. Block and Thibodeaux go out on a second date, escorting his children as they trick or treat (while secretly observed by the killer who's disguised as one of the night entertainers). When they are put to bed, Block shies away from intimacy with Thibodeaux, and then he has a nightmare that he attacks her in the guise of the killer.
One of the victims' clothes has some cash in it, which the police track down to the payroll for a brewery. The money has the same glass and barley residue on it that has been cropping up at all the crime scenes. When Block goes to the brewery to investigate, the killer watches him move through the facility. That night, the killer invades Block's home, killing some of his pets and the nanny, and also handcuffing and gagging Amanda. Block shoots at him several times, but the killer manages to escape.
While going through news clippings, Block recalls the name of a rapist cop Leander Rolfe (Marco St. John) he put away and is now killing anyone associated with Block. Further investigation reveals that the rapist had been paroled and was working at the brewery. Block and his team stake out the rapist's apartment, but the rapist moves to attack Thibodeaux at her home (succsessfully slaying the cops guarding her). Realizing that she is in danger, Block races to her home, where he disrupts the rapist's attempt to strangle her. He chases the rapist through a cemetery and into a rail yard. During their final scuffle, Block pushes the rapist into the path of an oncoming train, which kills him.
Tightrope was filmed in New Orleans in the fall of 1983.[1]
The film was released in United States theaters in August 1984.[2] It eventually grossed $48 million at the United States box office.[3]
The film has an 82% freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes, out of 11 reviews. Roger Ebert praised the film for taking chances by exploring the idea of a hard-nosed cop learning to respect a woman. He cites the film as "a lot more ambitious than the [Dirty] Harry movies."[4] Ebert's colleague Gene Siskel also praised the film during their on-air review of the film on At the Movies, crediting the performance of the villain, the relationship between Eastwood and Genevieve Bujold, and Eastwood doing "a terrific job risking his star charisma playing a louse" and also "taking us inside to see what it's really like to abuse women".[5] Janet Maslin concluded that the film "isn't quite top-level Eastwood, but it's close."[6]