MovieChat Forums > Coogan's Bluff (1968) Discussion > Question for republicans

Question for republicans

posted 17 years ago by jnatch
13 replies | jump to latest

Imdb is a favorite place for freepers, dittoheads and other assorted righties to come bash films they perceive as liberal. You hardly ever see someone do the opposite. This isn't because "hollyweird" does nothing but churn out lefty propaganda. To be honest I dont know what the reason is, but there are loads and loads of films that are ones that must please people on the right (Juno comes to mind).

Anyway, this film just trashes New York relentlessly from beginning to end. Everyone here is stupid and provincial. It's full of junkies and queers and and criminals and prostitutes, while the "cowboy" is superior to them all. But Coogan is really a total ass if you think about it. He treats women like manure. He is also a serial rule-breaker. So I wonder if some people thinks this balances the film or, god forbid, do they think those things make him cool? Does a righty's macho sensibilities, not only excuse Coogan's traits but make him more likeable to them? If you do then ask yourself this - was it ok that he had illegal sexual intercourse with a minor? He sees Linny's profile in the psycholgist's files. It clearly says she is 17. He then finds her and screws her. Is that ok?

Oh but then he goes back and literally throws her around the room and then starts choking her - no not for kinky sex, for information of course.

The end if classic. The other woman who he treated like crap and used and abused sees him off and throws him kisses from the helipad. Classic.

[–] phoenixandrew 11 years ago

The lesson I got from the movie is that redneck sheriff's deputies from rural parts of the country who come to big cities to apprehend suspects need to follow the rules just like everybody else. Plus people like Coogan are not special and not entitled to special treatment just because where they come from cops violating the rights of the accused is allowed (like the brutal way he treated that Native American suspect back in Arizona at the beginning of the movie). Did you notice at the end when the perp was apprehended for the second time, the NYPD captain repeated to Coogan what he told him at the beginning of the movie he needs to follow procedures to apprehend the suspect? And when he did, he got his suspect and they got to fly back to Arizona with no problem. The message I got from this movie is had he done it the correct way, he would not have gone through all that trouble of chasing the suspect all the way to the Cloisters.

[–] joekiddlouischama 10 years ago

The film is about cross-cultural fertilization, iconoclasm, and antiheroism; it's not an ideological tract, and from an ideological perspective, it would probably be discomfiting to both liberals and conservatives. Eastwood's character is, if you will, a carnal cowboy ...