Any Which Way You Can: Review By moviegeek

When studying films, I've often found that amongst all of the categories that a film can fall under, whether on the positive spectrum (fantastic, entertaining, thought-provoking, etc.) or the negative spectrum (sick, evil, unfunny, unconvincing, etc.), there is one destination that every film should avoid: boredom.

Boredom occurs when a film ceases to make you react. A terrible film at least stirs something inside of you. But an apathetic film that never comes off the screen is the most depressing to watch. Such is the Clint Eastwood vehicle, Any Which Way You Can.

Philo (Eastwood), a bare-fisted fighter with a pet orangutan, is offered a soaring financial offer to compete in a huge fight against a terrifying opponent. Unsure of whether or not to take the deal, Philo spends much of the movie flirting with a bar singer, caring for his mother, and bossing around that darned monkey.

I think the very first problem that comes to mind with this picture are the two words 'Eastwood' and 'comedy'. The two elements don't really work together. Much like Megan Fox and a film crew, the elements clash throughout the whole film. Clint Eastwood is a great tough guy and does well in the fight scenes, but he has no noticeable charm or charisma to play off of the humorous events occurring around him.

I realize the movie came out in 1980, but the sound editing and film editing are poor. The fist punches are noticeably post-edited. Some of the shots are misplaced in a group. The fights are shot facing individual contestants rather than seeing the fighting itself.

Any Which Way You Can is quite funny in points. There are some purposefully dumb actions by the characters that made me chuckle and there are some random, yet funny, bits scattered throughout. But the monkey was poised as the main part of comedy and, unfortunately, he wasn't all that funny. Rather, he was obnoxious.

I didn't have it in me to not like this movie because it isn't forcefully bad enough to warrant a negative emotion. And for reasons I've already stated, there is too much wrong to call this a good movie. So here it lies, in the middle, in boredom. There is nothing to embrace or disgrace. I will soon forget this movie.