Plot: Arizona lawman Walt Coogan (Clint Eastwood) hopes to make a short business trip to the big city, but his journey quickly becomes an odyssey of violence. Walt is flummoxed when Manhattan police put the brakes on his plan to return a jailed murderer (Don Stroud) to the Southwest. Bent on getting his man, he temporarily outwits the New Yorkers, only to be plunged into a series of ugly confrontations with counterculture types who are the antithesis of the straitlaced Walt.
Before he was “Dirty” Harry Callahan, Clint Eastwood played another tough guy cop – Coogan in the 1968 film Coogan’s Bluff, directed by Don Siegel who Eastwood would work with on several pictures including Dirty Harry.
At 90 minutes long you’d expect Coogan’s Bluff to be well paced, and you’d be wrong; it’s actually pretty slow for the first half and it’s only the last half hour where we get some proper action.
So many movies from the 60’s were about the atmosphere and trippy visuals, and this is surprisingly one of them where some scenes could easily have been trimmed to make things more exciting. As it is, there isn’t a sense of urgency to Coogan’s Bluff and I did find it really dragged at times.
Coogan as a character is actually a bit of a dick and not someone we especially root for. He’s deliberately stubborn and makes things harder than they need to be while also treating women poorly. There is a nice bit of character development where at the beginning he taunts a suspect by offering him a cigarette then stubs it out in front of him; at the end when he catches his man, he offers him a cigarette and lets him smoke it. He learns that it’s actually easier to work with people rather than doing things the hard way.
Lee J. Cobb practically steals the movie as Lt. McElroy who has all the best lines especially when he’s first introduced.
Don Stroud is our villain James Ringerman who Coogan is trying to apprehend and take back to Arizona. He isn’t in it enough for us to have much feelings about him either way but towards the end he seems quite deranged.
On the action front, I enjoyed the pool hall fight as it felt scrappy and what a real fight looks like; arms and legs flailing everywhere and it just worked. There is also a cool motorcycle chase through a park with Eastwood doing some of his own stunts.
Lao Schifrin provides the score and it’s very 60’s and he always knew the right sound for these kinds of films.
Overall, Coogan’s Bluff is very much a product of the 60’s and isn’t the best in terms of pacing. There is more action in the second half with a highlight being a pool hall fight. If you’re a fan of Eastwood then this is still worth a watch as even when Coogan isn’t especially sympathetic Eastwood’s swagger has you rooting for him to succeed.