Any Which Way You Can

More of the same in pleasant sequel to Every Which Way But Loose. Any Which Way You can is directed by Buddy Van Horn and written by Stanford Sherman and Jeremy Joe Kronsberg. It stars Clint Eastwood, Sondra Locke, Geoffrey Lewis, William Smith and C.J. the Orangutan. Philo decides to retire from bare knuckle fighting, but when the Mafia come along and arrange another fight, he is spurred on to take another big money fight. The Black Widows motorcycle gang are still after his blood, Clyde the orangutan is still creating mischief, and Lynn Halsey-Taylor is trying to make up for breaking Philo's heart. Much like the first film this is all very silly but ultimately great fun. Crux of the narrative is Philo being dragged back into the bare knuckle fight game to fight the street fighting king Jack Wilson (Smith excellent). All this and matters of the heart are trying to be repaired. Clyde the orangutan is once again a ball of mischief fun making, while the crowning glory that is the big fight is superbly staged and prolonged for grand effect. There's a wonderfully fruity section that sees parallel seductions going on - including Clyde and a lady orangutan - and there's actually some adult writing in how the fighters are shown to be compassionate men, as opposed to just being brainless thugs making a few bucks. It was another big hit at the box office, once again proving that sometimes theatre goers just want to leave the brain at the door and have a fun time of things. 7/10

<em>'Any Which Way You Can'</em> is woeful. It would be quicker to note what I liked about this - nothing - than to note the negatives. It's such a haphazardly created film, with every detail of it being either nonsensical, extremely forced or just dull. It's such a drag also, I checked the elapsed time at one point expecting to see at least 1hr 15mins... I had seen barely 40 minutes. Clint Eastwood tries his best, I guess, and is one of the brighter parts, everyone else is very forgettable - including Sondra Locke's Lynn, who is all of a sudden the opposite to what they set up in the original. Then you also have the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Any_Which_Way_You_Can#:~:text=Manis%2C%20the%20orangutan,William%20Munns.%5B9%5D">dodginess</a> of stuff offscreen with the orangutans. To think, this beat a Warner Bros. box office single day record set by <em>'<a href="https://letterboxd.com/film/superman/">Superman</a>'</em>. 1980 - you poor, poor souls.

**Eastwood apes his owm image again.** This superior sequel to _Every Which Way But Loose_ is a lot of fun and has more laughs than its choppy predecessor. Phil Beddoe and his monkey are targeted by the mafia who make him an offer he cannot refuse. Along the way he encounters his _arch enemies_ - the _cretinous_ Black Widow biker gang who have a score to settle. Big laughs, big fun and a big ape who is not above _soiling_ in police cars make this a lot of fun. - Ian Beale