Tonight on Amazon: ‘Too Dark’ for Clint Eastwood, this forgotten thriller with a young Denzel Washington goes too far

Amazon Prime Video is currently hosting via Warner Pass a thriller that was supposed to be part of the Inspector Harry saga, but which Clint Eastwood deemed “too dark” for Harry Callahan! The project went ahead anyway, with Denzel Washington as the headliner, and Ricochet was born!

Along with his teammate Larry Doyle, police officer Nick Stiles arrests a murderer named Earl Talbot Blake through the eyes of an amateur camera. The footage airs on TV and Nick becomes famous and gets a promotion, while Blake is in jail. Behind bars, an ex-assassin plans a patient and gruesome revenge…

Denzel Washington plays Nick Stiles, of course, and John Lithgow plays psychopath Earl Talbot Blake. The two actors would also star opposite each other a few years later in The Pélican Affair (1994).

The film is based on an original story by Fred Dekker (Monster Squad) and Menno Meijes (The Color Purple) and is intended to be the sixth installment in the Inspector Harry adventure. Except that their story is considered if “dark” And so radical that Clint Eastwood outright rejects it. Ricochet was then written by Stephen E. De Souza to become a standalone script from the Dirty Harry saga, produced by Joel Silver.

The film is directed by Australian Russell Mulcahy, who at the time was enjoying the success of the first Highlander (Highlander, The Return was released the same year as Ricochet). Mulcahy continued his career in several television movies, then became one of the regular directors of the series Teen Wolf (for 39 episodes), then the movie Teen Wolf (2023).

Will its ricochet be too difficult for you? Would he make a good Inspector Harry? Your keyboards!