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