DIRTY HARRY (1971)

Country: U.S.A.

Genre(s): Action / Crime

Director: John Siegel

Cast: Clint Eastwood / Andrew Robinson / Reni Stantoni

Plot

Ignoring the legal red tape and politics, San Francisco Detective Harry Callahan makes it his personal mission to bring a serial killing sniper to justice.

What I Liked

I’ve found “Dirty Harry” to be a difficult movie to write about.  So much about it is definitive about the modern police action film that it is hard to separate it from the constant parodies that followed.  It therefore becomes hard to separate what I like about this movie from what I didn’t like.  Clint Eastwood’s Harry Callahan is a tough-guy cop out to exact violent justice, ignoring legal constraints and political correctness along the way.  Callahan is a man of action, while most of his colleagues in law enforcement and government are worthless men of words; intellectuals and politicians.  The villain is an exact foil for Callahan.  He is an effeminate coward who hides behind the ransom letters he sends to the police and the castrated legal system that prevents his capture.  Even in the 1970s these were clichés.  Similar themes already pervaded cop films like 1968’s “Bullitt” and the entire Western genre.

What makes “Dirty Harry” stand out is the execution.  As action entertainment, the movie as a whole leaves little to be desired.  Eastwood is perfect in every way as Callahan.  So perfect there’s nothing really to comment on in his performance except that he is “tough-guy cop out to exact violent justice” personified.  The directing, camera work, and scripting keep the film moving forward at a steadily entertaining pace.  Meanwhile the story moves Callahan smoothly between the scummy streets and luxurious sky scrapers of San Francisco, accentuating the two worlds in which Callahan operates and at the same time keeping the scenery and suspense fresh.

What I Didn’t Like

As mentioned earlier, it is difficult to not view some of the positives of the film as also being representative of shortcomings; namely, the aforementioned clichés.  Likewise, the perfect casting of Eastwood as Callahan can also be viewed as typecasting in terms of the actor’s range.  Callahan could arguably be viewed as a modern version of the Man With No Name character Eastwood played in the 1960s Spaghetti Westerns of Sergio Leone.

Most Memorable Scene

What else? “I know what you’re thinking. ‘ Did he fire six shots or only five?’ Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement kind of lost track myself.  But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you’ve got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky?  Well, do ya, punk?”  Macho monologues don’t get any better.

My Rating: 4 out of 5