Film Review
Although it met with a barrage of controversy and bad press when it was
first released,
Dirty Harry
was the defining police thriller of the 1970s. Arguably the most
influential film of its genre, its portrayal of a maverick cop being
forced to step outside the law to deliver his idea of justice was to
provide a template for countless films and television series throughout
the decade. The film was originally seen as fascist propaganda in
some quarters, a reaction to liberal policies that favoured criminals
rather than the victims of crime. The fact that it proved to be
an enormous box office success shows that it touched a nerve. At
the time, the ineffectiveness of policing and the leniency with which
dangerous offenders were treated by the judicial system was a major public concern across
America, and indeed across the entire western world.
Dirty Harry offered a vision of the
cop as guardian angel which many were willing to embrace.
Director Don Siegel had trod similar ground with his previous gritty
action films,
Coogan's Bluff (1968)
and
Madigan (1968), but
Dirty Harry is where he finally
managed to get his message across, whilst delivering one of the most
stylish and tense action thrillers of the decade. The film does
not, as some claim, condone vigilantism but rather shows that in an
increasingly violent world the police have no option but to be as
ruthless and determined as criminals if society is to be protected,
otherwise anarchy will prevail. Some would argue that, over the
past decades, the pendulum has swung far too far in favour of the
criminal, and so the issues that the film raises are just as topical
today as they were when it was first released.
Dirty Harry is not about revenge
killing, it is about the appropriate response the law enforcers need to
take to keep law abiding citizens safe in an increasingly violent
world.
As the eponymous Harry,
Clint Eastwood gives us one of cinema's great icons - the lone wolf
maverick cop, a saturnine anti-hero who is as charming as his
merciless. Eastwood had originally found international stardom in
a series of spaghetti westerns directed by Sergio Leone, including the
classic
The Good, The Bad, and the
Ugly (1966). The solitary hard man persona that he
perfected in these films made him the perfect casting choice for the
role of Harry Callahan, a tough uncompromising San Francisco cop who
lives by his own rules. The actor would play the character in the
four subsequent sequels -
Magnum
Force (1973),
The Enforcer
(1976),
Sudden Impact (1983)
and
The Dead Pool
(1988). The role so suits Eastwood that it is hard to separate
the actor from the character and his public persona would be linked to
this, his most celebrated role, for many years. And with good
reason - this is Clint Eastwood at his absolute best, and where he gets
to deliver his most quotable line. "You've got to ask yourself
one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya, punk?
© James Travers 2010
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Next Don Siegel film:
The Black Windmill (1974)
Film Synopsis
When a young woman is shot dead by a rooftop sniper, San Francisco
police inspector Harry Callahan is tasked with finding the
killer. Nicknamed Dirty Harry, Callahan has a reputation for not
doing things by the book and he is not pleased when his superiors
saddle him with a rookie cop as his partner. In a ransom note,
the killer identifies himself as Scorpio and threatens to go on killing
unless he is paid $100,000. After being pursued across town by
Callahan, Scorpio doubles his ransom demand and threatens to kill a
teenage girl he has abducted. Callahan agrees to take the ransom
money to the killer but, predictably, the drop ends in a bloody
confrontation. Scorpio escapes, having been badly mauled by his
police attacker, and files a complaint against the San Francisco police
department. Even though Callahan has accumulated enough evidence
for a conviction, the process by which he acquired it makes the
evidence inadmissible, and so Scorpio is allowed to walk free.
Callahan knows that the killer is a dangerous psychopath who will
strike again and decides to take the law into his own hands.
Scorpio must die...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.