The Eiger Sanction

An extremely silly movie, at least partially by design, Clint Eastwood's adaptation of best-selling suspense author Trevanian's novel is his attempt at an over-the-top adventure in the James Bond mold. From Eastwood's casting of himself as an art professor/assassin (someone from the Indiana Jones camp must have been taking notes) to a camp parade of villains and sexpot femme fatales, the tone here is one of implausibility on a grand scale. Up to an anti-climactic mountainside finale, however, Eastwood wrings great fun from the unwieldy enterprise (the outdated, if not actually mean-spirited, attitudes toward women, minorities, and gays now only contribute to the mixture of intended and unintended comedic appeal). Savvy as usual, Eastwood tempers the silliness with some handsome desert climbing sequences and paces his film like the page-turning potboiler that inspired it. He may be out of his element and The Eiger Sanction a curious sidestep in his career, but it still offers enough guilty pleasures for several movies. ~ Keith Phipps, All Movie Guide