59
Metascore
10 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 75Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertChicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertThe Gauntlet is classic Clint Eastwood: fast, furious, and funny. It tells a cheerfully preposterous story with great energy and a lot of style, and nobody seems more at home in this sort of action movie than Eastwood.
- 70Time OutTime OutThe well paced script is an effective mixture of worldliness and naïveté: despite the couple's graphic sparring scenes, in which Eastwood more than meets his match, their relationship remains curiously innocent; a kind of fugitive romanticism pervades.
- 70NewsweekDavid AnsenNewsweekDavid AnsenFor all its violence - the movie has an almost fetishistic fascination with the destructive power of gunfire - the mayhem in The Gauntlet is as harmless as a comic book. You don't believe a minute of it, but at the end of the quest, it's hard not to chuckle and cheer. [02 Jan 1978, p.59]
- 63Washington PostGary ArnoldWashington PostGary ArnoldVicious and hypocritical as it is, The Gauntlet remains an entertaining sort of disreputable show, considerably more proficient and interesting than junk melodramas in a dogged vein.
- 63The Globe and Mail (Toronto)The Globe and Mail (Toronto)As slow as Eastwood appears onscreen, he's learned a thing or two about fast pacing as a director. The action is frequent, occasionally inventive, and, aided by some searing trumpet playing on the soundtrack by Art Pepper, fairly tense. Unfortunately, he overdoes it. [23 Dec 1977]
- 60The New York TimesVincent CanbyThe New York TimesVincent CanbyIt is a movie without a single thought in its head, but its action sequences are so ferociously staged that it's impossible not to pay attention most of the time.
- 50The New YorkerPauline KaelThe New YorkerPauline KaelYou look at the screen even though there's nothing to occupy your mind--the way you sometimes sit in front of the TV, numbly, because you can't rouse yourself for the effort it takes to go to bed.
- 40EmpireEmpireIt's telling that the film is still only truly memorable for the closing five minute bulletfest, which turns Clint's bus into the only thing with more holes in it than the screenplay.
- 40TV Guide MagazineTV Guide MagazineThe violence is bloody, nonstop, and as pointless as the script.