Watch Any Which Way You Can For Free

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

The story goes that Burt Reynolds was friends with Clint Eastwood in the late 70s and Burt suggested that he would do a serious cop thriller if Clint did a comedy akin to Burt's numerous good ol' boy flicks (e.g 1977's "Smokey and the Bandit"). So Clint did 1978's "Every Which Way But Loose" and 1980's "Any Which Way You Can" while Burt eventually did "Sharky's Machine" in 1981, which he described as "Dirty Harry in Atlanta." Burt lost the challenge because, not only are most of Eastwood's cop thrillers superior to "Sharky's Machine," both of the "Which" films are superior to Burt's good ol' boy flicks, particularly the first one.Eastwood stars as easy-going truck driver Philo Beddoe who fist-fights on the side for extra money. His buddy Orville (Geoffrey Lewis) promotes unofficial prize-fights for him while his pet orangutan, Clyde, assists them. San Fernando Valley, CA, is their stomping grounds as they enjoy cold beer, country music, bars, women and the occasional fight. While Philo is an expert when it comes to fights he's not so expert when it comes to women, particularly a little country and western singer, Lynn (Sondra Locke). They're relationship ended badly in the previous film, but it may or may not be rekindled in this one. Philo, Orville and Clyde are still pestered by a gang of witless bikers (John Quade, Bill McKinney, etc) as Philo considers squaring off with the best fist-fighter on the East coast (William Smith). Ruth Gordon is on hand as Ma.Like the title blurb says, this is almost as good as the previous film, which IMHO is the best of the good ol' boy movies of that era. Many like it better, so it's a matter of opinion. Regardless, "Any Which" is consistently entertaining from beginning to end and, while it's too zany to take serious (even zanier than the first movie), the characters are decidedly human and there's a lot of warmhearted-ness mixed with the laughs and thrills. Add Clyde's amusing & amazing antics (and, less so, Ma's) and you have a worthy sequel to the eminent good ol' boy movie.Since this is a sequel and plot threads are carried over from the first film, it's best to watch that one first to fully appreciate this one. The original orangutan featured in "Every Which" had matured too much and was possibly dangerous so they used a different ape. Glen Campbell performs the title song at the end, which was a Top 10 hit on the country music charts.The film runs 114 minutes and was shot in San Fernando Valley, CA (and nearby areas, like Bakersfield), and Jackson,Wyoming.GRADE: B+

Full disclosure: I haven't seen this movie's predecessor, EVERY WHICH WAY BUT LOOSE. However, I get the feeling that you don't need to see it in order to understand or appreciate this one. Although the plot leaves a lot to be desired and it's probably about 20 minutes too long, it's still good-natured and has a lot of humor, to boot. Clint Eastwood plays Philo Beddoe, a truck driver who also does bare-knuckle fighting, and he's accompanied by an orangutan named Clyde. The basic story is that Philo has quit fighting, but he gets strong-armed by the Mafia into doing one final fight. At the same time, he's being pursued by a Neo-Nazi biker gang called The Black Widows. While I wasn't really into this type of movie, and it certainly is not one of the better things that Clint Eastwood has been in, there were a lot of individually funny scenes that made me laugh a lot. Not only that, but they actually follow up on a lot of the gags. That's probably the highest praise I can give this movie. Other than that, the plot is a muddled mess. It seems like they just threw a bunch of stuff at the wall to see what would stick. Despite having a bunch of elements that were funny on their own, they never really gelled to make a coherent narrative. For what it's worth, all of the performances were at least decent, but Eastwood seemed like he was just going through the motions at times. The best performance of the movie, however, was the orangutan who played Clyde. There's also some good soundtrack cuts, even if I don't quite like country/western music. Last, but not least, the fighting, despite not having a lot of it, was pretty good and well-filmed. Overall, I wasn't too impressed with ANY WHICH WAY YOU CAN, but I wasn't too bored and I laughed more than a few times. It's on the bottom end of Clint Eastwood's resume in terms of quality, but you could do a lot worse.

Every Which Way But Loose was bad enough, so, two years later, the producers decided to make a sequel. And Clint Eastwood went along for the ride.Every Which Way But Loose was Clint Eastwood's career low-point. Not necessarily the worst movie Clint Eastwood ever made, but it must be close to to it. No, a career low-point because he chose to be in it. The script alone, and the fact that his co-star is an orangutan, should have tipped him off that this movie was not going to be anything more than mediocre. He should have listened to WC Fields: "Never work with animals or children".The money must have been good.Quite silly, lowest common denominator stuff. Pointless, random, hole- filled plot. The whole aim seems to be to get to the next fight scene.Any Which Way You Can is more of the same. Once again, the money must have been good...

Crude, sophomoric, irreverent, silly, stupid, overly macho, etc., etc. - yet, an endearing and very enjoyable film for a lot of people. I wouldn't put myself in that category any more, calling it "endearing," but when I was a lot younger and more less discerning, I laughed a lot at this. I enjoyed this as much, if not more, than the original film, "Every Which Way But Loose." Now, it's a bit too seedy and I don't care for all the abuses of the Lord's name in vain, especially in comedy. However, this is an entertaining film. No one falls asleep watching the antics of the orangutan or Clint Eastwood and his fighting opponent or the irascible Ruth Gordon. The villain in here - Eastwoood's boxing opponent "Jack Wilson" (William Smith) was a good guy and the bare- knuckle was something to see!It's low brow stuff, but a lot of that kind of humor was big in the '70s and early '80s.