THE DEAD POOL

I'm a huge Eastwood fan and have seen all his films more than once but out of the Dirty Harry series, The Dead Pool is the one I've seen the least times. And so I pulled the disc down from the shelves. I seem to remember being disappointed with this instalment but I thought I'd give it another go. Maybe it wasn't as bad as I remembered.

This is the final in the Dirty Harry series - the one with that silly car chase, Harry against a remote controlled toy car which had been rigged with explosives, itself a spoof of Bullit. That scene always seemed awkward with me and not in tone with the rest of the Dirty Harry series. It was the kind of thing you'd expect to see in one of the Roger Moore, Bond movies.

However watching the film now, knowing that I wasn't going to get classic Dirty Harry, I enjoyed it a lot more than ever. I guess by this point in the series Eastwood had decided to resort to self parody. The film was made in 1988 and the 80's was a uneven period for Eastwood films - Heartbreak Ridge, Pink Cadillac and City Heat were amongst the worse contenders with only the likes of Honkeytonk Man, Tightrope, Pale Rider and arguably one or two others saving the decade from total mediocrity.

Horror movies, particularly of the splatter variety were very much in vogue during this period, and the plot of The Dead Pool attempts to cash in on this. Harry is investigating a series of murders linked around a British horror movie director, played by a young Liam Neeson. The film is also notable for featuring Jim Carrey before he had made a name for himself.

The action comes thick and fast and the Dirty Harry name helped make the film a big box office success even if it is structured along the same ground as all the previous Harry movies. But where the others, even Sudden Impact, tried to give Harry's character some realism this one didn't bother and instead moved from one spectacle to the next with the actors mostly sleepwalking between.

Okay it's certainly not the best in the series but it does provide an enjoyable enough viewing experience. That is if you remember this is a million miles removed from the classic first movie in the series. And you know what - today that toy car chase didn't seem so silly.