That Time Guns N' Roses, Jim Carrey and Clint Eastwood Converged
How the 1988 film 'The Dead Pool' brought Clint Eastwood, Jim Carrey and... Guns N' Roses together.
Clint Eastwood's final "Dirty Harry" movie—1988's The Dead Pool—isn't great. Historically, critics have considered it the least satisfying of Eastwood's five Dirty Harry films, a list that includes 1983's Sudden Impact, 1973's Magnum Force and the one that started it all, 1971's Dirty Harry.
All the films are about Harry Callahan, a fictional San Francisco detective who's notorious for being violent and ruthless in his crime-fighting methods. But he got the job done, people. Of course, Callahan was played by Eastwood.
Anyway, The Dead Pool still manages to scrape together several decent scenes and noteworthy moments. For example, as you'll see in the two embedded clips, the film brings Eastwood together with Guns N' Roses, which is pretty weird. Things get even weirder, however, when you realize Jim Carrey and Liam Neeson are also in this movie.
"[Eastwood] came up to us on the set, and the guy's like 9 feet tall," Slash said in a late-Eighties audio interview that has since been removed from YouTube (although it was available when we posted the original version of this story). "Yeah, he's very intimidating. He walked up to us and said, 'Great album,' shook our hands and walked off. I didn't really know what to think of it, so I don't know what his trip is."
In the top clip, you can watch a still-unknown Jim Carrey imitate Axl Rose as he lip-syncs to Guns N' Roses' 1987 hit, "Welcome to the Jungle." In The Dead Pool's story line, Carrey's performance is part of a video that's being shot by a director played by a not-yet-famous Liam Neeson.
SPOILER ALERT: Carrey's character is killed right after the scene described above. This brings us to a funeral scene that features Eastwood, Neeson and the classic Guns N' Roses lineup. Be sure to watch the middle clip; it shows Slash firing a harpoon into a window before an eternally disappointed Neeson yells, "Cut, cut, cut!"
P.S.: Although it's not my favorite Dirty Harry movie, The Dead Pool is still slightly less annoying than 1976's The Enforcer. The best of the bunch is Magnum Force. Just my opinion, folks.
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Damian is Editor-in-Chief of Guitar World magazine. In past lives, he was GW’s managing editor and online managing editor. He's written liner notes for major-label releases, including Stevie Ray Vaughan's 'The Complete Epic Recordings Collection' (Sony Legacy) and has interviewed everyone from Yngwie Malmsteen to Kevin Bacon (with a few memorable Eric Clapton chats thrown into the mix). Damian, a former member of Brooklyn's The Gas House Gorillas, was the sole guitarist in Mister Neutron, a trio that toured the U.S. and released three albums. He now plays in two NYC-area bands.
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