slightlymad22 Continuing my plan to watch every Clint Eastwood movie in order I come to the comedy Pink Cadillac (1989)Plot In A Paragraph: Skip tracer Tommy Nowak (Eastwood) is tracking Lou Ann McGuinn (Bernadette Peters) for a bail bondsman in California. Lou Ann is also being chased by her husband Roy McGuinn and his white supremacist friends a gang called the The Birthright. The last comedy Clint Eastwood would ever make. The movie was an attempt at returning Clint Eastwood to the action-comedy genre which gave him the highest grossing movies of his career in Every Which Way But Loose and Any Which Way You Can (the latter had the same director as this movie and the last Dirty Harry) but sadly it's neither funny, charming or even watchable.The most interesting things I found watching this movie for the first time since it's release was Jim Carrey turns up here (his second Eastwood movie in a row) billed as James Carrey, as an Elvis impersonater. Regular Eastwood co stars Bill McKinney and Geoffrey Lewis pop up here in their last Eastwood movies too whilst Frances Fisher makes her first appearance in an Eastwood movie. Clint who has saved worse movie plots than this, seriously has his work cut out here. He tried hard, but it just doesn't work. Part of the problem is it's trying too hard to recapture the magic of the Philo Beddo movies (trailer parks, rowdy bars, motels and even another car wash) even the members of The Birthright can be compared to the bikers from those movies. Another is racism, and a baby being kidnapped are not very suitable topics for the gentle charming comedy this is aiming to be. Played straight it may have turned out different, but as it is, this is a tough one to say good things about. The 1980's ended with a whimper rather than a bang as Pink Cadillac was the second Clint movie to under perform as it only grossed $12 million at the domestic box office, to end 1989 as 74th highest grossing movie of the year. Making it Clint's worst performing movie since Joe Kidd seventeen years earlier. It actually didn't even get a cinema release in the UK, making it the first Clint movie to go straight to home video since he became an A list star.

Predrag This movie has some rawness and grit, interesting story line, plot, and sub-plots, with Eastwood as a tough no-nonsense detective, Speer, and Reynolds as an ex-cop and Private Eye, Murphy, who butt heads with each other, in Prohibition-era 1933 (last year of Prohibition, in fact), but team up to investigate mob murder and corruption. It also has some funny lines and wittiness. And of course, Eastwood, with his intensity, as well as his piano playing, is in true form as usual. The costumes are great. The sets are delightful and the cars dazzling. The treat in the movie is Jane Alexander as Reynold's long suffering brilliant secretary. Worth watching just for the pleasure of her company.The plot is a good one and the story believable just poorly executed, despite good performances. There's not a whole lot of saving graces other that what has already been mentioned but at least you can see some different, although hollow, acting performances by Madeline Kahn, Rip Torn, Richard Roundtree, Jane Alexander, and Irene Cara. Clint didn't direct this film, but his production company produced it and Buddy Van Horn directed it. Van Horn is Clint's stunt coordinator and Clint surrogate, and has directed several Clint films (most notably The Dead Pool). Maybe that's the idea of this film, but it didn't succeed in delivering the camp factors. The whole film felt like a middling effort, but at least it had the grace of showing a young Jim Carrey doing stand-up, which showed how little he changed over the years.Overall rating: 7 out of 10.

southaustinartist This was supposed to be a comedy, a bridge between the "Clyde" movies and his later, more serious movies. Here, Clint is beginning to show his age. HE just cant be as rough and tumble as he was in the 60's & 70's. Ms. Peters wasn't a very good actress in this movie, Its painful to watch the baby bomb scene. She's better suited to Broadway.Here, Clint played down his character. This was more of a parody of his "Gauntlet" role, just as the last Dirty Harry movie was a parody of the entire Dirty Harry series. The Caddy gets ruined much like the bus. The Brotherhood gang isn't as scary as the Black Widows, but they are as goofy, and they serve the same purpose: just a group of outlaws to give Clint someone to contend with. Clint had better adversaries in his Spaghetti Westerns.The scenery is nice though. I graduated high school not long after this movie came out and it was an encouraging factor in all the road trips I took all over the American Southwest. I still haven't made it to the Sierras though.The lesson learned here is, its better to make fun of yourself and have fun doing it before someone else does and possibly does it with venom.

bob_bear Like most people I guess, I'd never heard of this movie (it not getting a theatrical release in the UK). But I like Clint so when it came around on late-night TV...The leads are excellent, the script is witty, but the direction plods. The first third is so slow it almost had me reaching for the off switch. (A Pink Cadillac that runs on Valium, is no fun ride, me thinks.) Still I hung on in there and am not disappointed that I did.Eastwood's attempt at playing "characters" was vaguely cringe-worthy. Let's face it, his best role is playing Clint Eastwood. Even so, he still has enough charm to get away with trying. Bernadette Peters adds subtlety, humor and integrity to her role. The film is well made. It hangs together. It was just never worth a special trip to the cinema. But fine on DVD or video with wine and a pizza.