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.
- 40TV Guide MagazineTV Guide MagazineThe violence is bloody, nonstop, and as pointless as the script.