Cleveronix A different way of telling a story

Bea Swanson This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Aubrey Hackett While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Sameer Callahan It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

rodrig58 Beautiful music signed by John Williams. Beautiful Swiss landscapes carefully shot by Frank Stanley and William N. Clark. I like movies with action on the mountains and especially when the genre is thriller. But this thriller has many flaws. The character played by Clint Eastwood is a classical art professor and collector who doubles as a professional assassin. Really? Well, only Clint Eastwood can be such a scholarly mixture, he's the only hit man with such elevate artistic taste in the history... The one who sends Jonathan Hemlock (Clint Eastwood) to kill, does not know the victim's name but knows that the guy limps and knows on what mountain he will climb... Really? From the start the movie has some problems. Three writers, Hal Dresner, Warren Murphy and Rod Whitaker, three brains, but so many things that are not credible. All those other three climbers break their safety strings and fall into the abyss, only Clint's strings remains intact and is the only one who remains suspended and alive. Well, he's the main character, the hero of the film, also director and producer (Malpaso Company), he's Clint Eastwood. He has to stay alive, to finish the movie and to do many other films. The character George, played by Brenda Venus, is a brilliant excellent climber, much faster than Clint, and also a crazy drug addict? I like the very sharp knife look and the way Clint talks, but he had to think better about the imperfections of the script. George Kennedy is very natural as always. The other actors too. Only Clint seems to have a great carrot deep in his ass all the time.

TxMike I watched this on DVD from my public library. It is one of seven Eastwood movies released on a set of discs. For an older movie the picture and sound are pretty darned good.Clint Eastwood had bit parts in many movies and TV shows and by the time he became somewhat "known" he was almost 30. But then his career really took off. By the time this movie, "The Eiger Sanction", came out he was a movie star. The movie is based on a book and it is directed by Eastwood. His role required a lot of mountain climbing so Eastwood became a mountain climber for the role, reportedly because he thought it was too dangerous to hire a stunt double. So we actually see a lot of Eastwood doing his own mountain climbing, including the scene near the end where he was dangling off Eiger Mountain and encouraged to "cut the rope above you." Tragically one mountain climber in the movie died during shooting.The title reference to "sanction" is to impose a penalty on someone, in this case to assassinate someone during a scheduled mountain climb on Eiger Mountain in Switzerland. Eastwood plays Jonathan Hemlock, professor and art collector, supposedly retired as an assassin for a secret government agency but is pulled out of retirement to avenge the death of a friend. We later learn that everything was a set-up for a totally different reason.With the amount of time spent on climbing, in Monument Valley to prepare, then on Eiger Mountain for the "sanction", it is clear those responsible fr this movie wanted to focus on the scenery and the climbing. Otherwise the story itself is pretty plain vanilla. But Eastwood is a star, his movies are always fun to watch.SPOILERS: As Hemlock goes into the climb with three others he doesn't yet know which one is his target. he supposedly was looking for a man with a limp. But and accident kills one climber, then bad weather forces them to retreat, and descent incidents kill the other two. So, unwittingly, Hemlock gets rid of all of them yet the man with the limp turns out to be his friend, played by George Kennedy.

TonyMontana96 (Originally reviewed: 18/03/2017) This is a picture that is most entertaining and very funny, it doesn't need to retort to crude antics, and it's simply well made, and features some of the most realistic cliff climbing sequences ever put on film. Eastwood fans will lap this up, and as a definite fan myself, I was satisfied, despite this not exceeding his best work, but then again it's hard to out-do your own work, when you have such classics like Dirty Harry and The Good the Bad and the Ugly on your filmography. The story here is fairly simplistic and it probably isn't as smart as it could be, but as a comedy it soars, and for something that has a running time of approximately two hours, it really kept me interested throughout.The humour is consistent and not everything land's, but most does and some real good lines include "Don't forget your trench coat, how will anybody recognise you without your disguise", and "but she's a girl" to which Eastwood's buddy replies "a lot of people notice that, and a rather funny sequence where one man says "You think I can't handle it, to which Eastwood replies "Not even in a locked closet with a grenade". Which are simply a few really funny lines, in a picture that should have been deemed a comedy, because that's how I personally viewed it, and found it extremely enjoyable. Clint is of course excellent as Jonathan Hemlock and the supporting cast are adequate, though I didn't like this two faced, homosexual, I felt his character was rather unnecessary but actor's like George Kennedy who play's Eastwood's friend Ben Bowman, and Vonetta McGee who plays a sort of love interest to Eastwood's character are rather good and have some really solid chemistry on screen with Eastwood himself.The picture looks good, is well shot, competently directed by Eastwood, and has some great cinematography, including scenery of the mountains; it never takes itself too seriously, and it's a lot of fun and has a solid amount of strong comedic value. Overall: The Eiger Sanction is a very good addition to the great Clint Eastwood's body of work.

gavin6942 An classical art professor and collector (Clint Eastwood), who doubles as a professional assassin, is coerced out of retirement to avenge the murder of an old friend.Early on, we get an excellent cameo from exploitation queen Candice Rialson, posing as a young art student. Throughout the film (especially the first half), we get plenty of great humor and one-liners. Yet, it seems to be a largely forgotten piece of cinema.Joy Gould Boyum of the Wall Street Journal remarked, "The film situates villainy in homosexuals and physically disabled men." That is a gross injustice to the film, even if there is a flamboyant man, a limping fellow and an albino. Moreover, it overlooks the interracial relationship that could be considered progressive.Roger Ebert wrote that the film "has a plot so unlikely and confused that we can't believe it for much more than 15 seconds at a time, but its action sequences are so absorbing and its mountaintop photography so compelling that we don't care." This is quite true. The scenes are beautiful and the plot is a bit bizarre in more than a few places.I think this is one that needs to be re-examined. Eastwood really threw himself into the picture, both directing and starring (and doing his own stunts). The humor and deadpan delivery is excellent, and just the great shots that were achieved deserve some recognition.While as of now (January 2014) the film exists as a widescreen DVD, it would look great on Blu-ray and perhaps it is not too late to get a commentary from Eastwood or others involved in the picture. George Kennedy (now 88) probably has few good years left in him.