The Gauntlet (VHS)

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The Gauntlet (VHS)

A hard but mediocre cop is assigned to escort a prostitute into custody from Las Vegas to Phoenix, so that she can testify in a mob trial. But a lot of people are literally betting that they won't make it into town alive.

• Rated: R
• Number of tapes: 1
• Run Time: 109 minutes
• Format: Color
• Languages: English
• Subtitles: English

“Classic Eastwood. Fast, furious and funny.” It started out as an ambush. And ended up as a war.

Phoenix cop Ben Shockley’s dream of breaking “the big case” has faded from lonely years of scorching sunlight and too much Jack Daniels. His assignment to bring back from Las Vegas “a nothing witness for a nothing trial” seems like just another meaningless task in a meaningless life. Until the fireworks start.

Clint Eastwood runs The Gauntlet into an explosive piece of moviemaking that lives up to its title with a vengeance. The witness, Augustina “Gus” Mally, turns out to be a hardened hooker whom everybody – including Vegas odds-makers – would like to see dead. Trapped by treachery on both sides of the law, the two are forced through a deadly obstacle of raging gunfire, blazing cars, swooping helicopters, murderous ambushes, crazed bikers and crooked police.

In Shockley, actor/director Eastwood brings a subtle vulnerability to his tough-guy screen persona, a trait carried forward in Tightrope and Heartbreak Ridge. As Gus, Sondra Locke, whose work with Eastwood includes The Outlaw Josey Wales, Bronco Billy and Sudden Impact, conveys a strength and hard-bitten integrity that charges the relationship between these two loners with tenderness and believability.

With nonstop action and special effects that will blast you to the back of your seat, including a ferocious finale in which an armored bus is shot to smithereens with more than 8,000 bullets, The Gauntlet is a trip you won’t want to miss, particularly now in this newly-issued digitally-processed edition. Leave the driving to Eastwood; just sit back and enjoy the ride.

1977 Warner Bros