"Get out of here. Either of you friggin' vampires ever touch this telescope, you're gonna need surgery to get it out of your ass!"- Ben
"Here's to the selfish killer and the patriotic whore. I usually keep a twenty in the bowl by the door. You might pick it up on the way out."- Hemlock
Alahoyus everybody! Doing research on this flick, I was blown away at Clint Eastwood's background as a director. He's been lauded I guess for years. I know more recently I've been paying attention since "Mystic River", but I had no idea that he directed "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" or "The Bridges of Madison County". He even did a couple of his own earlier cowboy flicks... Who knew? The one I am here to rally around and totally celebrate today is his fourth film as a director. This flick was one of my favorites growing up and I've seen it many many times. I always thought it was one of his strongest, dare I say my favorite movies as an actor, and I never even took to time to notice that he directed it. It blows away a lot of Bond flicks if you ask me. Unbelievable cast, breathtaking cinematography, awesome banter, and one of the most tightly written adaptations I've ever seen. Ladies and gremlins, George Kennedy and Clint Eastwood in THE EIGER SANCTION!!!
Brief descriptions can't really sum up the beautiful scenery that unfolds in this story of hired assassins and they kill us/we kill them. I only want to give a brief plot summary on this flick because even though its not that "talked about" of a flick these days, it IS available and rather easy to find if you are willing to do some digging. And believe me it is worth it!
The Eiger Sanction is a great flick about international espionage. Dr. Hemlock (Eastwood) is a college art history professor/ art collector/ ex mountain climber/ and ex assassin for a government agency known as C2. He retired and spent the bread from his "sanctions" (or killings) on rare paintings. He is contacted by his old employer "Dragon" through a courier named "Pope". Dragon wants him to do 2 more sanctions. He decides to do one of them, so that he can afford a rare painting that just went on the market for his collection.
On his way back home, he meets a woman named Jemimah Brown. She bangs him and steals his money and paintings, hired by Dragon to basically convince Hemlock to take the other sanction. When Hemlock goes to get his shit back from Dragon, he's pissed but finds out its his old bud that he's getting revenge for. He claims that's all they had to say. The fucked up thing is he has to not only go back to being a killer, but go back and tackle something that had already almost killed him- twice. The Eiger, a huge legendary mountain in Switzerland.
He decides to take the job, but first he must go train in Arizona with his old climbing buddy Ben. Here you get a chance to see the Totem, this insane natural formation out in AZ. They climb it for practice and the view is breathtaking. I can only imagine what it took to film these scenes. There's a bunch of other characters here and a bunch of old scores to settle dealing with betrayal and other heavy shit that I can't get into, because I don't wanna give too much away. It sounds like I've told a lot already, but this is a very layered yet easy to follow masterpiece. There's a bunch of hot women, a bunch of back and forth backstabbing, and bunch of back story that connects and makes the frayed ends make sense, and the flick is set up into a few sections. The whole ending is the actual climb. This is one of those underrated films that was never really put on a pedestal and deserves much more recognition than it gets. Find and watch this badboy at all costs! doublemcthumbs up! Happy new years dears!
Hard to go wrong with Eastwood.
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