A surprisingly tightly wound serial killer mystery.

Tightrope may appeal to the Dirty Harry fans, with its sex and violence. But it's a lot more ambitious than the Harry movies, and the relationship between Eastwood and Bujold is more interesting than most recent male-female relationships in the movie.

Perhaps the reason why "Tightrope" remains Clint Eastwood’s only film yet to reckon with the cop construct he had enshrined onscreen is because it remains exhaustively effective 40 years later.

On an action fan's gut level, I like Eastwood. There's no other star who can pull off tense, John Wayneish moments so well.