User Reviews

One of Clint Eastwood's more personal projects is Honkytonk Man where he both gets to do some singing and also to work with his then adolescent son Kyle. Apparently Kyle Eastwood has inherited the musical part of the Eastwood genes because he makes his living now as a jazz musician. I wonder if he ever jams with Woody Allen?

Clint did not exactly set the world on fire in his previous musical outing in Paint Your Wagon. But in Honky Tonk Man he's right in his element as a hard living country singer during the Depression trying to finally catch a break with the Grand Ole Opry.

Arriving at his sister's farm, Clint picks up both Kyle who is playing his nephew here and John McIntire who is Kyle's grandfather on his father's side and the three generations start out from Oklahoma to Nashville.

Eastwood has played some hard bitten characters in his films, but never one as dissolute as Red Stovall. His high living has brought him a case of tuberculosis, a lot more common and a lot less curable back in those days. In any event the peace and quiet of a sanitarium holds no interest for Clint. He'd rather go out drinking and wenching than die of boredom in a sanitarium.

Of course the odyssey of the three bring any number of adventures about life and love in their lives.

John McIntire fits right in with the father and son Eastwoods. Also look for good performances by blues singer Linda Hopkins, young Alexa Kenan who hitches a ride with the travelers, and a cheating Barry Corbin who Clint collects from in the usual Eastwood manner. All and all a nice family project from the clan Eastwood.

The critics didn't like this film, but I beg to differ. Perhaps I'm naive and gullible, but to me it rings true in its local color and the coping of poor people in the Depression amidst the aspirations of young and old alike.

My father, a published author in a small way, once mused to me that if he were to write a novel, it would be about someone trying to come to terms with his own mediocrity. Such is the theme of this movie, and hardly typical a consideration it is in a time when the media bombard us coast to coast, for our adulation, with the glamorous images of a mere handful of individuals who happen to have landed vast fame and fortune. What does any of this have to do with most of us? On the one hand, we live day to day. On the other, a recurring dream whispers "maybe..."

Knowing that he is living on borrowed time, Red, humble and hand-to-mouth but respected more than he knows by a few somewhat more successful colleagues (and an unusually fallible and vulnerable character for Eastwood, which he plays well) is granted, in extremis, an apparent opportunity to reach for the stars. More down-to-earth, he is also fortuitously blessed/burdened with not just one but two young proteges: first his nephew, then also a girl at loose ends. Perhaps neither is particularly talented; nevertheless both have a claim on his attention which he reluctantly fulfills in his own unassuming way, while making no exalted pretenses as to their prospects. When on his deathbed he can do no more for them, he commends them to each other. "You take care of her, now" he rasps to Whit. "She's okay. Help her with her singing." While they may never reach celebrity, the texture of life can sustain them if they face it together.

As, dying and perhaps delirious, he gazes up into Marlene's face, he sees the "raw-boned Okie woman" he had loved for several years as a mistress, and whom he later had regretted leaving. She had borne a girl whom he had never met. Marlene was a fatherless waif of about the right age. Did he recognize at the last moment his long-lost daughter? It is a question which the film leaves hanging in the air. Does genealogy matter? In practical terms, that is what she became almost too late.

For my money, it's a raw-boned, American Okie "La Boheme."

An under appreciated 80s effort (being Eastwood's ninth stint directing a major feature), which rarely gets a mention and if so it mainly gets a "meh". This Clint Eastwood directed/performed feature 'Honkytonk Man' shows much more a vulnerable Eastwood in a very dramatic role (of an aging, alcoholic drifting country singer) that asked a lot from him. Set during the period of the great depression that ravaged the 1930s, Eastwood manages to capture the authentic atmosphere and dusty locations of the times with Bruce Surtees's earthy photography and his very-grounded direction, but also letting the harshness move over for some very sentimental openings that never manipulate the situations. There's a real homegrown feel, mixing elements of a coming of age story to someone longing to be somebody and this is all coming together to learn not to take everything on face-value. We watch two people, fulfilling a dream as it ignites the passion leaving to a series of adventures and an insightful script exploring the interactions.

It's an inspired turn by Eastwood, but his son Kyle Eastwood is just as impressive in a sincerely down-to-earth performance as the young lad Whit, the 14 year old nephew that makes sure that he gets his uncle to the Gran Ole Opry stage to do his thing… albeit trying to keep him sober to perform. Along for the journey you'll find the likes of John McIntire, Alexa Kenin, Tim Thomerson, Barry Corbin, Macon McCalman, Joe Regalbuto and Charles Cyphers making up a splendidly admirable cast. A very heart-warming Verna Bloom and sturdy Matt Clark do leave their marks as Whit's worrying parents. While rather long, the chemistry makes sure the story marvelously flows and the relax temperament lets the emotional factor seep in. I don't know, but I found it hard not to like. The score is a perfectly delightful country twang featuring numerous names in Marty Robbins, Frizzel and West, Ray Price, Linda Hopkins and supervised by Snuff Garrett. Let's not forget Eastwood himself adding to the arrangement.

A wonderfully brassy and enterprising Eastwood fable.

It took a lot of nerve in the early eighties,in the days of Rocky,Indiana Jones and "fame" to portray such a human wreck.Eastwood's character recalls Hank Williams,one of the few country singers whose songs experimented tragedy ("I'll never get out of this world alive"). The difference lies in the fact that the singer here will remain an obscure artist.

A road movie,it features an interesting boy character who learns the harsh realities of life.In the short space of a couple of days,he will have experimented love (first in a brothel,then probably later with the girl they met along the road) and death (he'll have to cope with a burial).The young female "singer" they -reluctantly-take with them provides the movie with the comic relief it does need:you should hear her sing "My bonnie" in a shrill voice.

The ballads Eastwood sings are moving and tuneful(I don't know if he is dubbed for them,but anyway it's made with taste and respect for the audience).The audition is the highlight of the movie,Eastwood seems to sing as if it were a matter of life and death(and it is anyway).The actor/director avoids pathos and melodrama.Once again,it was a very risky move to play such a character at a time when success story was the golden rule.The movie was bound to be a flop,but it deserves to be restored to favor now.

The Wagoneer farm in Oklahoma is devastated by a dust storm. The family plans to go out to California. The brother Red Stovall (Clint Eastwood) is a sickly drunkard Honkytonk Man going to Nashville to play in the Grand Ole Opry. Grandpa wants to go back home to Tennessee. Whit (Kyle Eastwood) wants to join Red. Red is looking to be repaid $100 by Arnspriger (Barry Corbin). After some misadventures, Red forces Arnspriger to pay up but Marlene (Alexa Kenin) hitches a ride in the trunk.

This is a fun road trip. I'm not sure that the acting gene passed on to Kyle. He's OK but nothing special. Alexa Kenin gets some fun hilarity. The big mistake is when the group splits up. The group is just gaining chemistry but then they are scattered to the winds. There is no reason why the group couldn't go all the way to the Opry to see Red perform.

A little farm somewhere in Oklahoma that can be mistaken for a Western homestead. But then a red convertible comes toward as uninvited a guest as the dust storm. Then from the worn-out overalls and the whole sandy texture, we can tell this is the Great Depression. So just before the story starts, a series of vignettes popped in my mind: families, nostalgia, America, country music, blues, road movies...I knew what to expect.

The car stops before it hurts someone (except for the driver and an ill-placed windmill), the driver isn't dead but "dead drunk", it's the family's uncle from Mama's side. He doesn't know it yet but the life of fourteen-year old Whit (Kyle Eastwood) is taking a new turn very soon. That boy spent his life staring at the emptiness of the Oklahoman plains while sitting on the house steps, so he welcomes the visitor as good news and what is hidden in the car's trunk is more than promising: it's a guitar, smooth and shiny.

As Red Stovall, Clint Eastwood makes an interesting variation on the 'cool uncle' figure, the one who travels a lot, tells interesting stories and always bring items that cut through the daily banality. Eastwood doesn't even make him unlikable, just a bit gruff, but this is a man who likes music and can only appreciate that a kid likes it. Whit's father (Matt Clark) is a frustrated farmer with the look of someone who kept eating the sour grapes of wrath, Red can see that this is no inspiring figure for a kid at the verge of adulthood while Whit admires his detachment and his badass stetson. The bond is tacit but immediate, Whit cleans his uncle's car so good one could see his face there, he makes it ready for a new start as if he felt he would be part of it.

Road movies and Great Depressions form an inevitable narrative pairing, that was the time of John Steinbeck and famers emigrating, the time Bonnie and Clyde filled the headlines while emptying small town banks, the time artists translated their ordeals into songs that built up to country music, and that's Red's dream: a stage concert in the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. The mother (Verma Bloom) is worried about her brother's suspect coughs and accepts to have his son following him. The third passenger is Grandpa (John McIntre) who wants to go back to Tennessee, being the one instance of a man moving toward a brighter death.

As usual, Eastwood plays a man with a secret past, once we suspect triggered his alcoholism and choice for celibacy, a broken romance, a bad choice, a fear of success, who knows? There's obviously something buried in that soul that the gentle poetry of country music can dig out one shovelful at once. Like I said in many reviews, country music is all about telling stories. The film's gone for one hour when Red unveils his secrets and once they come, we're not even surprised for they were already hinted in the songs he played in shabby motels, musical clubs and honkytonks. The songs told his story allowing the rest to be totally devoted to a tender picturesque uncle-and-nephew journey.

And so we see them traveling, making halts in colorful little towns, fixing their cars and visiting whorehouses to pursue the initiation of little Whit, he breaks a promise by drinking some bootleg whisky, he has his first dizzying inhalations but nevertheless remains a good kid, being as essential a driver and assistant to Red as Red is a mentor. What they have in common than is that they're aware of their limitations but are willing to take chances, still better than working in a plantation. They're right on the long term because country music doesn't nourish people as folks do but we do remember folks through country music. The audition is Red's ticket for immortality.

Now, "The Honkytonk Man" is one of these low-key Eastwood movies that only invite you to take each moment as it comes and see where it's leading up to. You have a few chuckles when they steal hens and get arrested, you're in awe of the grandpa recalling his memories of the Oklahoma rush, September 16 1893 I remember it, and you just enjoy the music. And what do you know, at the end you realize that you've enjoyed a little gem, it had a story, it had character development and once again with Clint Eastwood, even the 'minor' offerings have major things to say. This time, it's about the roots of America, the art form it originated without any European inspiration, the best that could come from the most difficult times.

The atmosphere of the era is well-restored, there are some cameos from real artists and overall, the material adapted from Clancy Carlile's novel doesn't go for the big dramatic twist. Just when you expect a deadly confrontation with a shady debtor might end bad, it's played for laughs and introduces a plucky wannabe musician named Marlene (Alexa Kenin) who also wants to make it big in Nashville, she's not a love interest, not a sidekick, but just a girl eager to get one chance to change her life, she's as willing as the others. I was really impressed by her comedic potential, making Kyle Eastwood a little bland in comparison. It's quite sad the actress passed away shortly after the film.

I don't use "low-key" as a synonym of "unpretentious", Clint Eastwood is a child of the Great Depression, if he wasn't exactly from a poverty-stricken family, he grew up with the spectacle of Okies coming to pick oranges or cotton in California and listening to radio and country music. I'm no musical expert but I could feel the passion in his songs, and from the simple but poignant way he tells his story, you can tell Eastwood had it in him. How ironic that one of his lesser known film might be his most personal.

This movie has an okay story, a bit in the road-trip theme, and Eastwood's son, Kyle, is an okay actor, but the other actors don't impress me much. Eastwood didn't seem to care much about making the movie an authentic "period piece", and you will often see details in the background from modern times, as well as the haircuts, which are obviously from the early 80's. Several times he shows musicians and they seemed to put the least amount of effort into looking authentic. At the Grand 'Ol Opry, the female singer who is on after Eastwood is singing in a modern style, and anyone who listens to music from the 1930's knows that doesn't fit. Even the music the bands are playing has a 70's/80's sound to it. Maybe they should have got T-Bone Burnett as musical director! They could have had a band on in the vein of the Carter Family, instead. I guess they had a limited budget and it shows, but it could have been a much better movie than it turned out to be. Other things I noticed were, the cement curbs in the really luxurious looking cemetery in the film with all the green grass and trees...excuse me, this is in the 1930's, and as far as I can tell, most graveyards didn't look that maintained, as there was little money. Little things like that that kind of ruin the illusion of a rough period in the US. Even the cars sitting outside the Ryman Theater are highly polished and obviously collector pieces rented for the film and the owners didn't want to get any dust on them. With all the detail Eastwood put into his later masterpiece films, I am a little disappointed, but it is still a decent movie, I gave it a 6 out of 10.

As with most movies i prefer to read professional critics after viewing,although i do sometimes read them first. Frankly as a retired sound man i do not allow critics to influence me either way. This movie with (my first viewing of a Clint family member)Kyle succeeded in roller coasting emotion from humour to unsentimental portrayals of all the cast. I looked out for Marty Robbins, whose name was referred to as the one (albeit brief) sole touching moment in the film. It was undoubtedly a touching moment, but certainly not the only one. The entire theme was skillfully intertwined with some really great songs and lyrics. This is another DVD I will add to my collection. A movie to watch, and even learn from, as to how humanity can be humble and unpretentious with subtlety, warmth and understated aggression. Clint is understandably angry, and we feel real sympathy for his place in the world he inhabits.

In the Oklahoma dustbowl of the 1930s country singer Red Stovall drops in on his sister's farm. He has an opportunity to play at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville but doesn't have enough money to get there. He eventually sets off with his teen nephew Whit and Whit's grandfather for company. For Whit this is his first chance to experience the wider world.

One of Clint Eastwood's gentler, more sensitive films and it works reasonably well. The plot is a bit unfocused and only comes together at the end but it's interesting enough. There's some entertaining scenes along the way and the ending is quite emotional.

Oddly unlikable, stolid effort directed and co-starring Clint Eastwood (in rueful spirits). Written by Clancy Carlile from his novel, the drama concerns a boozing Depression-era singer in Oklahoma, harboring health problems but about to hit the road for the Grand Ole Opry, taking his street-smart nephew (Kyle Eastwood) along for the journey as his driver. Real-life father and son Eastwood teaming never quite achieves anything special, with young Kyle struggling with his delivery. Many famous country crooners are given cameos, and Clint's vocals are rather pleasing, but this story is low-keyed and uncertain; if it's supposed to be heart-warming, someone forgot the heart. Worse, the golden-hued photography is brackish and unappealing, and the supporting players fail to add any energy. * from ****

Despite almost every critic I've read, I think this is a real gem by Clint Eastwood. A honest, sensitive effort in the road movie tradition. The minor tone, the naive sequences soothe Red Stovall's journey to his fate. The movie also displays a touching view of the depression era in USA. Like animated Roy Emerson Stryker's pictures the photography is remarkable as well as the sound track. I've learned about lots of singers and musicians that recorded only to give a final testimony of their art. I guess stories like these deserved a movie like Honkytonk Man. Long life to Clint, one of the most underrated talents not only in Hollywood but in the rest of the world.

Clint Eastwood - Dirty Harry, The Man With No Name - occasionally embraces a project that is the antithesis of his usual anti-hero roles. There is a touch of those characters in "Honkytonk Man"; Red Stovall is a loner, for example. But the similarities stop there. This is an Eastwood labor of love. One gets the impression that he enjoyed making this film and really didn't care one iota whether the public did, or whether it made any money. While the love and nurturing that he poured into it doesn't make it a great film, or even a very good one, it does have its moments and is worthy of a viewing.

Eastwood plays Red Stovall, a consumptive man of the road who makes his living crooning and playing his guitar in roadhouses and flophouses. Knowing that his affliction while take him sooner or later, probably sooner, he embarks for Nashville to take his shot at the Grand Ole Opry with his nephew Whit (played by Eastwood's son, Kyle) and his father in tow. After a very slow first 45 minutes, during which many a VHS/DVD renter has likely been irrevocably lost, the film picks up pace. Along the way they encounter various foils of the road - a small-town sheriff, a deadbeat who owes Red some badly-needed money, an ambitious young woman, car troubles - but finally arrive in Nashville where Red takes his shot.

Clint sings in this one, and he's not half bad; however, in one seen where his disease gets the better of him mid-song and one of the session musicians has to take over at the microphone, the replacement's voice outshines that of Red, an unintentional reminder of Eastwood's limitations.

There's a reason Kyle Eastwood has only appeared in only four films, all others being minor roles. But there is also a connection here between father and son, and it works. There are plot holes - whatever happened to Grandpa? - but the final hour of the movie redeems the film and it ends on a note that Hollywood wouldn't choose, almost always a good thing.

6 out of 10.

"Honkytonk Man" is one of Clint Eastwood's most offbeat and atypical films; unfortunately, for the first hour, it is also one of his dullest. The story just doesn't seem to move forward or to lead anywhere. But then some brief amusing moments start redeeming it somewhat, and in the last 30 minutes it turns into a full-blooded (but never aggressive) weepie and gets considerably better. Eastwood de-emphasizes his usual facial expressions and one-liners here, and he isn't much fun to watch, but in the end he handles his difficult dramatic moments (like the scene where he tries to keep singing even though his disease has clearly worn him out) surprisingly well. As a whole, this personal effort from Eastwood is uneven, often tiresome but fitfully very interesting.

Set in Depression era Oklahoma, this film tells the story of a dirt poor, alcoholic singer named Red Stovall (Clint Eastwood), who heads out for Nashville, in hopes of making it big as a country singer. The story begins on a dilapidated farm composed mostly of dust, where Red's sister hesitatingly allows her son Whit (Kyle Eastwood) to go with Red to Nashville. The kid's Grandpa (John McIntire) also wants to go, to return to his native Tennessee. The film's beginning is dreary and depressing, but wonderfully realistic of the dust bowl days of the 1930s.

Much of the plot takes place on the road, as the three travelers encounter an assortment of characters and problems along the way. The most important character they meet is a young girl named Marlene (the late Alexa Kenin), who yearns to be a country singer. It's one of many plot contrivances, but at least this contrivance offers some humor, especially when Marlene ... "sings". Other plot contrivances include a jailbreak, an angry bull, an aborted robbery, and an incident involving a chicken coop.

If the film's weakness is excess contrivances, the film's strength is the portrayal of Red as an interestingly complex character. He coughs a lot, a symptom of tuberculosis. And the TB is getting worse. The question is ... will Red be able to reach the promise land before the disease affects his ability to sing? And, in a long monologue aimed at Whit, Red talks about his long-ago love affair with Mary Sims.

The film's acting is credible, if not outstanding. Kyle Eastwood does a nice job as Whit. The film also features cameos by several then-current country singers. At the end, there's some sad real-life irony as Marty Robbins helps Red.

"Honkytonk Man" has some good atmosphere. Arguably, the best segment is at the Top Hat Club on Beale Street in Memphis, where the great Linda Hopkins belts out a blues number. If the film's writer had ditched some of those hokey "on the road" contrivances, and focused the plot more in smoky old bar rooms with low light levels and mournful music, the film would have been a lot better. As is, "Honkytonk Man" is still worth a look, if for no other reason than to see a low-key character study, in contrast to the brash and gaudy big ticket films of that cinematic era, like "Raiders Of The Lost Ark" and "Star Wars".

Clint Eastwood has been known for playing macho tough guy roles in the late 60's and 70's. His roles ranged from playing a lone gunfighter in the spaghetti western trilogy directed by Sergio Leone, to playing the street-wise police detective Harry Callahan. Now, he plays a different kind of role. One that is more softer and more touching than ever before. Eastwood stars and directs in Honkytonk Man. Honkytonk Man tells the story of a down and out Depression country singer, who's wounds up taking his nephew on a cross-country road trip to the Grand Ole Opry, where Eastwood wants to try to get a record. Along for the ride is the little boy's grandfather, played by John McIntire. When the trio go on their trek across the country, they stumbles into different kinds of misadventures that teaches Eastwood's nephew lessons along the way. Lessons that include life and death. Even love in that matter. The nephew, by the way, is played by Eastwood real-life son, Kyle. He gives a very fine as Whit. There is a lot of times in this movie that really press gently on the Eastwood persona. This is something that surprises me and any other movie goer who follows Clint Eastwood's movies. Honkytonk Man was the second Eastwood movie to be released. The first was Firefox, in which he plays a air pilot, who hijacks a Soviet spy plane. And, when Eastwood sings in this movie, he really does try to put in a lot of effort when he is performing on stage with the audience. The movie is also bittersweet with the relationship between Eastwood and his nephew. Like I said before, this is a change for Clint Eastwood. He drops his tough guy persona and turns it into a completely character. This may compared to his other film he did called Bronco Billy, in which he plays a rodeo cowboy. That film and this brings back some of those elements that Bronco Billy had and is inserted into Honkytonk Man. One more thing, I was disappointed that this movie didn't get a lot of attention. This film was a box-office flop, compared to his other film, Firefox, which grossed more money than this movie. There are a lot of fine performances in Honkytonk Man coming from Eastwood, Eastwood's son and also McIntire. ★★★ 3 stars.

What can I say about Honkytonk Man except it is a clear indication of Eastwood's reputation as a risk taker. A road movie, it features an interesting boy character who learns the harsh realities of life. In the short space of a couple of days, he will have experimented love (first in a brothel, then probably later with the girl they met along the road) and death (he'll have to cope with a burial). The young female "singer" they -reluctantly-take with them provides the movie with the comic relief it does need: you should hear her sing "My bonnie" in a shrill voice. The ballads Eastwood sings are moving and tuneful(I don't know if he is dubbed for them, but anyway it's made with taste and respect for the audience).The audition is the highlight of the movie, Eastwood seems to sing as if it were a matter of life and death(and it is anyway).The actor/director avoids pathos and melodrama. Once again, it was a very risky move to play such a character at a time when success story was the golden rule.

An okay roadtrip movie in the middle of the depression with some good work from Eastwood and his son.

Honkytonk Man is not a must-watch or masterpiece but a nice roll back in time, mixing elements of drama, road movie, music and comedy in a good way. Set in the time of the Great Depression, we follow mainly the path of a musician and his nephew (played by Clint Eastwood and his son Kyle) on the road. Mr. Eastwood did not only play the main role but directed this one too. The journey is great fun and the production takes us back in those hard and dirty times, the end is a bitter-sweet one. To enjoy this one, you should have some like in country and blues tunes, and don't mind a story that takes its time to develop: recommended if you like movies a la Hard Times (1975), Bound for Glory (1976), Of Mice and Men (1992) etc. Exact rate: 6.5 for unknown reasons.

After the special effects dominated Firefox, Clint Eastwood went off for a few weeks to make a little movie about a singer in the Great Depression who takes his nephew halfway across the country, bonding along the way and imparting some life lessons. It seems pretty obvious to me which one Eastwood had his heart in, and which one was done purely for commercial reasons. Working with one of his many children, Kyle, Eastwood, working from a script by Clancy Carlile based on Carlile's book of the same name, made a personal film that feels surprisingly autobiographical.

On an Oklahoma farm during the Dust Bowl, the Wagoneer family is hitting hard times when the mother of the family, Emmy (Verna Boom), discovers that her errant brother Red Stovall (Eastwood Sr.) tearing down the family's fence as he drunkenly drives into it. He's working his way eastward from California to Nashville with the promise of a tryout on the Grand Ole Opry. Emmy's son Whit (Eastwood Jr.) becomes enamored of his uncle with his fancy car, guitar, and promises of life outside a rundown sharecropper house. It's a time of change, and Virgil Wagoneer (Matt Clark) is talking about uprooting the entire family to go to California to find greener pastures. His father (John McIntire) would rather go east with Red to Tennessee, the place of his birth.

Red is not, however, a particularly good person, and it becomes clearer as the film goes on. He has no problem taking Whit (whom he calls Hoss) to a honkytonk, and even stealing some chickens in the middle of the night. He's exciting to the young, sheltered farm boy, though, and when Red brings up the idea of taking both Grandpa and Whit along with him, Whit begs until his mother agrees under certain conditions. So begins the road trip which dominates the film. It's a series of events from Oklahoma to Tennessee where Red has a run-in with a bull, Whit goes into his first cathouse, Red tries to collect on an old debt, ends up needing to rob a place while picking up a wayward waitress Marlene (Alexa Kenin).

The point of it all is Whit being exposed to the life that Red has led over the past decades. A life of flophouses and honkytonks, constantly on the move and without any real roots anywhere. It's obviously enticing to the young boy, but as the trip continues and complications arise time and time again, the portrait begins to fill out. Red has a cough that won't go away (yes, the movie cough). They always seem to be a bad word away from the police taking them in. Marlene becomes extra clingy to the point that Red arranges to leave her behind. There's a disavowal of close relationships, highlighted by Red's occasional reminders that he could drop Whit at any moment if he gets in his way. The whole situation ends up driving Grandpa away as well.

In Nashville is where, of course, the character journey comes to its end, and the ending pushes Red to his end. It's largely standard, dramatic tragedy stuff, but there's one moment that was really quite wonderful. Driving away from a bar one night, Red tells Whit about the girl he wanted to marry some years back. It's a story that's purely Red, all about stealing a woman from her husband to run around with her, barely surviving wherever they went, and lying to her about loving her. Except, maybe he wasn't really lying? It was something he never really considered until she left him to go back to her husband. It's a reveal of a deep sadness in this wayward life, a questioning of whether it was really worthwhile. Still, as Whit says, it's better than living in a one-room sharecropper farm, right?

The resolution is a bit generic, but it's held together by performance. Eastwood, Sr. Gives one of his most interesting performances, ranging from easily charismatic to convincingly mean, and it's managed well within the story, not really acting like a huge showcase but appropriately being applied to the correct moment. Kyle Eastwood is also surprisingly good. His casting was an outright bit of nepotism (Eastwood was apparently just tickled at the idea of Kyle trying to make it in his own business), and with coaching from Sondra Locke, he gives a convincing performance that never grates. Working with children is obviously a hard thing, and you either direct them into a very tight space, which can take a very long time (like Peter Bogdanovich directing Tatum O'Neal in Paper Moon), or you essentially direct them to play themselves. Considering Eastwood's reputation of getting what he wants on single takes, it seems likely that father simply got son into the right mental place before shooting a scene and let it play out. It works. Kyle Eastwood's performance may not go down as one of the great child performances ever, but it's very, very far from the worst.

There are some really nice character moments at play, especially late, but the film ends up playing a bit too generically to become something really special. Still, it's a quite nice little surprise from Eastwood's 80s output. It's not great. It's far from bad. It's amusing, sweet, and sometimes even a bit touching.

Its an ok movie but far from his best work.

Not just a personal indulgence in making a movie on this topic (which is fair enough) but a further step in to nepotism whilst he works with his son.

Far from riveting the movie is a moderate watch.

I like Clint Eastwood and this is the first of his movies that i didn't like. Just way too slow for me. I fell asleep twice trying to watch it. My wife also said it was slow and she is more acceptable than i am most of the time.