Clint Eastwood Savages These Four Hollywood Classics
As a respected actor and director, Clint Eastwood usually keeps his opinions on other films to himself. However, some celebrated movies have provoked his ire. Find out which acclaimed classics he has openly criticized, revealing a side of the legend you've never seen.
Clint Eastwood has been around Hollywood long enough to understand the immense effort that goes into any film, good or bad. That's why he rarely speaks ill of another creator's work. But on a few rare occasions, the iconic actor and director couldn't bite his tongue. It might seem strange for a legend of his stature to admit he despises certain movies, but his strong feelings reveal a deep-seated aversion. He's acknowledged making some duds himself, but as a viewer, only a handful of films have ever truly gotten under his skin enough for him to publicly trash them. The surprising thing is, they're all considered classics.
A Personal Grudge Match
The reason for Eastwood's dislike of John G. Avildsen's 1984 hit The Karate Kid is purely personal. According to Sandra Locke, the man behind 'Dirty' Harry was actually considering directing the beloved coming-of-age story. He had just one condition: his son, Kyle, had to be cast as Daniel LaRusso. When Columbia Pictures turned him down, he walked away from the deal. The rejection left such a sour taste that he reportedly couldn't even stand the sight of Coca-Cola, as the beverage giant owned the studio at the time.
An Expert's Disapproval
If there's one genre Eastwood knows inside and out, it's the western. He built his career on them and directed his own masterpiece within the genre. So his opinion on Arthur Penn's The Missouri Breaks carries some weight. The 1976 film, famous for being the only time Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson shared the screen, wasn't a box office success initially. Over the years, it has gained a reputation as an underrated gem. But not for Eastwood. He dismissed it as “ridiculous,” adding that it “wasn’t a good script and they obviously felt so, too.” He even placed blame on Brando, suggesting the actor thought so little of the movie that he treated the production like a vacation to “go off and screw off somewhere.”
When a Master Falters
Eastwood owes a huge debt to Japanese director Akira Kurosawa, whose film Yojimbo was the direct inspiration for A Fistful of Dollars—a fact that led to a legal settlement. The American icon was a massive admirer of Kurosawa's filmography, with one glaring exception: the 1975 feature Dersu Uzala. Despite the film winning an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, Eastwood bluntly stated he “thought that was terrible,” though he conceded it “did have a nice wind sequence in it.” Even a lesser work from a master like Kurosawa is often considered remarkable, but it failed to win over the star he helped create.
A Horror That Failed to Scare
The horror genre has never been Eastwood's cup of tea, a fact made clear by his complete avoidance of it throughout his career. This puts him in the same camp as Stephen King, as both men share a passionate dislike for Stanley Kubrick's 1980 adaptation of The Shining. Eastwood found the marketing campaign, which hailed it as a terrifying masterpiece before its release, to be laughable. After seeing it, his amusement continued. He argued that if anyone other than Kubrick had directed it, “they would have bombed it right out of the building.” He insisted “there just wasn’t anything at all terrifying about it” and called the murder of Dick Halloran “dead as a dick.” His final verdict was short and brutal: “It was just a giant failure.”