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.

A charming, and endearingly goofy follow up to the successfully hearty comedy 'Every Which Way But Loose (1978)', which starred Clint Eastwood as cool-hand, bar-brawling Philo Beddoe along with his alcohol slurping orangutan companion Clyde. Slap-stick galore with the easy-going style of the original picking up the pace and having a variety of cartoon-like characters represented by a more than capably fruitful cast (some who are Eastwood regulars). They're here for a good time and it shows. Geoffrey Lewis, Sondra Locke, Ruth Gordon, William Smith, Harry Guardino, Bill McKinney and Barry Corbin give pleasingly amusing performances. However it's the returning John Quade who's a hilarious hoot as the leader of the haplessly crony bikers 'Black Widows'. Eastwood naturally comes across cool and collected in another winning performance. The drama here feels a little more spontaneous, busy and crazy with much more bare-knuckle, sweaty fist fights (which are well-executed) and a real infantile comical imprint. Streaming through is a heart-warming music score with an appealing country swing and open photography sharply frames some beautiful locations and accordingly gets amongst the action. Is it better than the first… I don't think so, but I never grow old of these fun, light-headed features.

"Right turn, Clyde!" – and the orangutan's fist shoots out the passenger window, impacting anyone dumb enough to have their face there. It's just one of many running gags in this inexplicable, fuzzy film.Any Which Way You Can (sequel to Every Which Way But Loose) opens with an illegal street fight, pitting bareknuckle street machine Philo Beddoe (Clint Eastwood) – now a local legend – against a Marine-beating bent cop, cheered on by a rowdy mix of truckers, crooked cops and busty chickie babes.While Philo ogles some jiggling boob, the cop catches him unawares. Before he rises from the sand, Philo gives his opponent a menacing look – that tilted head with one eye slightly squinting… All I know in this world is: you don't wanna be on the receiving end of the Clint Glare. Ever. In short measure, the cop goes down. Meanwhile, Philo's orangutan, Clyde, has crapped in one of the squad cars… Any Which Way You Can, written by Stanford Sherman and directed by stuntman extraordinaire, Buddy Van Horn, is one of those rare movies that takes everything good about its predecessor and mashes it up in a big bowl of wrong that tastes just right.One of the reasons this movie works is the palpable camaraderie on set – even between Clint and his "enemies." They've all worked with him before, in a cavalcade of past Clint classics: John Quade (in High Plains Drifter) along with his Black Widow gang of Clint regulars, Dan Vadis (Bronco Billy), William O'Connell (Josey Wales), Bill McKinney (The Gauntlet); underworld bookie Beekman is Harry Guardino (last seen chewing out Dirty Harry); there's the team from Every Which Way, Ruth Gordon once again steaming the screen as trash-talking Ma, Geoffrey Lewis as ever-faithful Orville, Sondra Locke still skeletal and untalented as Philo's girl, Lynn Halsey-Taylor; (the luminous Beverly D'Angelo was sorely missed in this sequel), and then there was Clyde the orang utan, always in the background, yet somehow in the furry foreground whenever a punch or a fart was needed to punctuate the action.Philo is still trying to make ends meet in Anytown San Fernando Valley by rebuilding engines and bareknuckle boxing. A $10,000 underworld match comes his way, against a man-mountain renowned for maiming and killing his opponents, Jack Wilson (William Smith). Philo and Wilson meet unofficially in a – what else? – barroom brawl, eventually befriending each other enough to cancel their bout and anger all the underworld figures who organized the betting stakes. They end up fighting unofficially, the fight growing in intensity and public attention until the whole betting populace of the small town is cheering them on, all bets on.With both competitors pushing 50, we wonder how this plot could even be plausible, yet through a blend of laconic humor and outlandishness, Any Which Way makes it believable, with a wham-bam-thank-you-ham third act that makes you want to do 50 pushups and sit-ups a day, just to look half as good as these veteran, iron-thewed warriors when you're their age.There's nothing deep here; crack a beer, strip down to your wife-beater and just enjoy it. Every which way you look at it, Any Which Way is a Right Turn, Clyde.

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.