Dirty Harry

Rating:
Summary: Dirty Harry
Review: I saw this movie as a kid and was hooked the moment Lalo Schifrin's incredibly cool theme kicked in. I can't think of a better played villain than Andy Robinson as Scorpio. This movie is an institution, and when I'm showing sites to people, I always associate them with Dirty Harry and when you see the smile come over their face, well as they say in the VISA commercials; Priceless.

Rating:
Summary: The classic movie stands the test of time
Review: Sure, times have changed, and men don't wear patches on the elbows of their sports jackets as a fashion statement, but Dirty Harry is still a powerful and exciting picture, as relevant today as it was in the early 70's.

Tightly directed by Don Siegel, with the gritty side of San Francisco as its backdrop, Dirty Harry is the story of a cop who lives for the hunt, and captures the changes in the American criminal justice system well ahead of its time.

Harry Callahan is on the tail of Scorpio, a sick and evil serial killer, but must jump hoops over the barriers of politics and the criminal-friendly laws. Decried by some as a fascist flick, others viewed it differently, and found the character of Callahan to be very compelling; an enforcer of justice in the wild west of the modern city. Clint Eastwood gives one of his signature performances, and Andrew Robinson plays one of the all-time great evil psychos.

The DVD has some interesting interviews with people like Robert Urich, Hal Holbrook, Andrew Robinson and others who starred in various Dirty Harry movies, as well as Arnold Schwarzenegger, who describes what a huge role model Eastwood was for him. There's a nice montage of the five Harry movies, with In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida as the musical backdrop. Clint Eastwood also comments, 30 years later.

Rating:
Summary: ya feeling lucky punk?
Review: the story is theres a freaky psycho out there toying with a rather forceful hotshot cop called dirty harry.dirty harry is played by clint eastwood.its not particuraly bad.the kids will have seen worse.the classic scene that defines clint.hes finaly got the bad guy cornered after a big firefight.he walks closer to the bad guy and utters the classic lines"i know what youre thinking punk.did he fire 6 times or only 5?and to tell you truth ive forgotten myself in all the exitement.but being how this is a .44 magnum revolver,the most powerful handgun on earth and will blow your head clean off your shoulders,you gotta ask yourself one question.do ya feel lucky punk?well,do ya punk?".it was awesome!it is the first of like 8 or 9 movies starring the dirty harry character.the best too.his superior officers come off as pretty annoying.this is clints best!

Rating:
Summary: The finest film of the genre
Review: I can't think of a film before "Dirty Harry" that had the theme of "the maverick cop willing to bend a few rules and break a few constitutional rights to save the day." But there were plenty of them after, including the sequels to Dirty Harry itself. There was even a left-liberal backlash, in movies such as "The Star Chamber."

And Dirty Harry is even better when weighed against the zeitgeist of the early 70s. Considering that bleeding-heart liberalism was in its ascendency and maybe even at its peak, the storyline, generous violence, bashing of criminals and civil rights alike, and indifferent attitude towards racial slurs and racial stereotypes, marks it as a high point of counter-counter-culture. Even John Wayne took note of Dirty Harry's success, and created the lesser, but still eminently watchable, "McQ" in response. Like "Forrest Gump" 23 years later, Dirty Harry proved that immortality, and a lot of money, awaits for the Hollywood producer, director, writer or star who is willing to buck the ingrained, inbred, left-wing Hollywood herd.

Rating:
Summary: Quality moviemaking- But bad for pundits
Review: No doubt Harry Callahan is a memorable landmark of a character in cinema. The pacing is tight, almost Tarantino-style; and the one-liners are some of the best. Eastwood is at the top of his game here (although personally I prefer the man with no name). I'm posting this review because I see that most reviewers have a shaky sense of ethics. Sure, Dirty Harry acted with the best intentions and we know he was right...but does he really have a license to do whatever is necessary to catch the killer? No, in my humble opinion. This is not the west, folks; America is a land of civil liberties and a system..a system for law enforcement. Do we really want a police force turned brood squad? For every justifiable use of force, there are dozens of wrong uses (read: Rodney King, Kent State). If we're so interested in justice here, is it fair to let the cops crack some innocent skulls just to make sure the guilty get punished? Fans of this movie should rent A Clockwork Orange, to get the other side. Recommended but not to be taken as reality, like Batman.

Rating:
Summary: 'GOD'S LONELY MAN."
Review: John Milius is the greatest screenwriter you never heard of, not to mention a terrific director. He describes the "Dirty Harry" Callahan character as "God's lonely man." Milius is that rarest of rarities, a Hollywood conservative. He herein wrote a film for the Republican Clint Eastwood that spoke to the hopes and fears of an America yearning for justice, law'n'order in a world dominated by overarching liberalism in the 1960s and '70s.

Picture America at that time: Vietnam, the streets and campuses exploding in riot, and a new social ethos that was willing to blame a racist white establishment for the crimes of this nation's increasing population of criminals.

In the 1960s, the Supreme Court became activist to the hilt. The most obvious of these cases was the famous Miranda ruling from Arizona, in which a criminal was allowed to go free because he had not understood his rights, not understanding the English language spoken by the arresting officer. His subsequent confessions were thrown out. The Court spoke of the "forbiddeen fruit" of evidence gathered by overzealous officers who "failed" to inform criminals that they were being searched just before they discovered their weapons, their drugs, their evidence. A police officer who found evidence of crimes was unable to make the case unless he had probable cause ahead of time to find the evidence.

In "Dirty Harry", a character (Andy Robinson) based on the never-caught Zodiak killer who terrorized the San Francisco Bay Area at that time, goes on a murder rampage. Eastwood catches him at Kezar Stadoium. A little girl is lying in a hole some place. She has a limited amount of air left. Eastwood knows the guy did it. We know it. God knows it. The scene is worth watching in light of Abu Ghraib and the concept of the "ticking time bomb" theory of interrogation that the terror era has brought upon us.

Eastwood knows that if the man is arrested and booked, he will not talk, hiding behind a lawyer, and that the girl will suffocate. He applies a little bit of torture to Robinson, the Scorpio killer. What he wants is to know where the little girl is, so she can be saved. Scorpio wines about having rights and wanting a lawyer. Eastwood extracts the information from him. The girl, however, has died before she can be found by the cops.

Eastwood is confronted by the D.A., who tells him not only that the killer had rights, but that he will walk as soon as he is healthy, and he has brought in a Berkeley professor to detail to Clint how he violated the criminal's rights and, in essence, is worse than the Scorpio killer.

The end? We've all seen it a million times on TBS's "Movies For Guys Who Like Movies." Eastwood gets his man. He receives zero gratitude from the authorities. Millions of ordinary American citizens appreciated him in theatres and TVs since then, however.

STEVEN TRAVERS
AUTHOR OF "BARRY BONDS: BASEBALL'S SUPERMAN"

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