The Eiger Sanction (1975)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1975
	Director: Clint Eastwood (Play Misty for me, J. Edgar)
	Actors: Clint Eastwood (Space Cowboys), George Kennedy (Airport, Earthquake), Vonetta McGee
	Country: USA
	Genre: Adventure, Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 13.05.2015, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: A former secret agent (Eastwood) is forced out of retirement when one of his friends is murdered. To find the killer he will have to take extreme risks.
Review: Continuing with Clint Eastwood movies from the same Blu-ray box-set as Play Misty for me, I then watched The Eiger Sanction which I had never seen. I love this kind of spy thriller for the 70's, and this movie contains some nice treats: the para-governmental agency the main character works for (reminding me of the Kingsman in the eponymous movie), the leader which could be a James Bond villain, the presence of George Kennedy (unforgettable Patroni in the Airport series) and the movie transformation from the genre "spy" to "Alpinism". Indeed the second half shows us some very well realised climbing scenes (in the beautiful Swiss Alps) and I was impressed by those, in spite of the fact that the story arc around them is far-fetched (must he really do the climb to find the killer?!?). As in Play Misty for me, I found that the Romance scenes are poorly done and almost ridiculous, hopefully they are only a few. Could that be a specificity of Eastwood's early movies as director? By the way the movie poster doesn't shown much apart from the fact that the movie is from and with Clint Eastwood, as if it were trying to attract the viewer with that only, and hide a bad movie. I didn't think so and rather liked the Man vs. Nature thing, my favorite part of the movie being the training of the hero (when Kennedy comes to play).
Rating: 7 /10