“Every Which Way But Loose” is supposedly a comedy that pairs tough guy Clint Eastwood (“Gran Torino”, “Where Eagles Dare”) with an orangutan that sadly only works during parts. Sometimes, I’m not sure if it is really a comedy.

In “Every Which Way But Loose”, a trucker named Philo Beddoe (Eastwood) is a great fighter that likes living with his ape Clyde. In order to find the girl of his dreams Philo and Clyde set off on a road trip with some angry police and bikers after them. With a few amusing moments in it you’ll laugh but it all leads to an unsatisfying conclusion that spoils the film entirely.

Clint Eastwood brings his tough guy formula but isn’t anything special. The real laughs come from the ape Clyde. He’s actually really funny as we see him drink beer, play dead like dogs and tons of other stuff, too bad it seems Eastwood gets the spotlight. The other characters aren’t particularly good in my books but there is one hilarious character named Ma (Ruth Gordon), who is responsible for probably the funniest scene in the entire film, now I’m not going to spoil it for you but if you do it see I think you’ll agree it’s pretty darn funny.

Although it’s not as violent or as foul mouthed as many of Eastwood’s films (notably the “Dirty Harry” pictures), it still has too much blood and a bad word too many to be considered a family film so that will alienate a big demographic. For me it has some good moments but it too many bad points for me to stick my thumb of approval up. There are plenty of good Eastwood films out there (I’m not sure if there are many good ape films though) so watch those instead.