Pink Cadillac
May. 26,1989 PG-13A bounty hunter helps out the wife of a bail-jumper after her child is kidnapped by neo-Nazi types.
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Reviews
Good start, but then it gets ruined
Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.
The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.
Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.
Pink Cadillac has Clint Eastwood playing a skip tracer who most assuredly is not Dirty Harry. But he's a guy who's good at his job and is most clever at arresting subjects, catching them off guard with all kinds of cons and disguises.He also likes a challenge so he's not terribly thrilled with getting an assignment to track down Bernadette Peters who simply has the bad misfortune to be married to a real loser in Timothy Carhart. He's done some jail time and made some real friends with the birth righters, a white supremacist neo Nazi gang who work on the outside as well.And what they're into is counterfeiting and when Peters walks out on Carhart taking their baby and the Neo Nazi loot with both real and bogus bills, she's got them after her as well.This film which will please die-hard Clint Eastwood fans didn't rise to any occasion for me. I just could not quite accept the neo-Nazis as even comic villains. And the film seemed to be a one note joke about the Pink Cadillac that hovered over the film. That no one would expect Clint Eastwood to be driving in such a conspicuous and flamingly effeminate ride. Even if it is Peters' car which they have to use out of necessity.Clint and Bernadette never quite connected either. Funny thing that with a different leading lady and a more serious treatment this might have been an Eastwood classic.But they would have to get rid of the Pink Cadillac as well.
I don't consider Pink Cadillac a terrible movie, just one I didn't care for. It is a well made movie, with a beautiful car, a good soundtrack, a few witty quips in the script, Clint Eastwood giving his all to the role and Bernadette Peters all bubbly and fun. On the other hand, I find the film rather dull, with a very sluggish first half, a mostly incoherent plot, characters that don't have much substance and you don't care much, some jokes that feel forced and lethargic direction.Overall, Pink Cadillac was not as bad as I thought, but considering how much I respect Eastwood, both as an actor and a director and a large body of his films, it could have been better. 4/10 Bethany Cox
You should add Jim Carrey to the cast list.Jim Carrey, (credited in the movie as James Carrey) has a part on stage in the Casino doing an Elvis Presley interpretation. He is shown in the background while Clint Eastwood and Bernadette Peters are talking.She says she is tired of hearing Elvis, referring to Carey and Eastwood grimaces when he sees Jim Carrey's act on stage.As usual, Jim Carrey's face seems to be made of flexible latex.This was not his first movie, nor his first Clint Eastwood movie. Jim also appeared in Clint Eastwood's The Dead Pool as James Carrey and prior to that he appeared in Earth Girls Are Easy.
Someone who, as the result of long military deployment at the end of the Cold War, saw nearly every theatrical release of the time is familiar with the Eastwood Mayoral Late Bubblegum Period. Scholars define this as Clint's tenure as mayor of Carmel, between the Marine anthem "Heartbreak Ridge" in 1986 and Clint's Western opus "Unforgiven" in 1992. In 1988 he put a belated end to Dirty Harry in the "Dead Pool," in 1990 he had a PG-13 bondage scene with Sonia Braga in "The Rookie," and in between there was this streetwise chase caper that was, to our loss, his only work with Bernadette. Bounty hunter Tommy (euphemistically a "skip tracer" since he's chasing a girl) captures bail jumper Lou Ann in Las Vegas and becomes caught up in the chase for a cash stash hidden in her pink '59 Caddy convertible by her drug-addict husband & his white supremacist, counterfeiting friends. Clint is at his most likable in these average-Joe tough-guy roles, men who survive only by their wits in seedy jobs (bounty hunter, bank robber, detective, street boxer) & take their lumps when they fall for lost causes or damsels in distress. Peters is fantastic in a humdrum role, going from sullen to sassy to sexy to sensitive without letting us down for an instant. The film is pure fun for its first two thirds, featuring little besides the two stars (Clint mimicking Bernadette's unique soprano is not to be missed). Geoffrey Lewis, an essential in all Eastwood movies like this, is entertaining as ever, this time as an addled hippie forger. The story follows the formula of several movies of this period, the best of which was "Midnight Run" (Cop/bounty hunter finds initial quarry, who's a patsy holding the key to bringing down a really nasty criminal/terrorist outfit). Unfortunately, the bad guys are too psycho-nasty for the light-hearted script, which also features Lou Ann's baby as a hostage. The pre-"Sopranos" mob bad guys of "Midnight Run" brought just the right amount of humor to distill their menace, but if you can find anything funny about neo-Nazi redneck drug addict survivalist militiamen who kidnap babies, please seek therapy. Clint actually gives it a shot near the end, so never let it be said he's not up for a dramatic challenge. "Pink Cadillac" isn't worthy as the only vehicle for the Broadway star and the greatest tough guy of his day, but it was a pleasant way to spend a couple of hours at sea. Compliments to "Speed Channel's" Lost Drive-in for bringing this & other forgotten car movies back to the small screen.