‘Dirty Harry’ Collection

Directed by veteran Don Siegel, the original ‘Dirty Harry’ hit the streets in 1971 to real controversy. It follows Clint Eastwood’s taciturn San Francisco police detective Harry Callahan as bureaucracy thwarts his pursuit of a psychotic Vietnam veteran who’s extorting the city at every turn. Whether the film was consciously challenging liberal attitudes or indulging in “transgression for its own sake” – as Eastwood biographer Richard Schikel mischievously suggests in his commentary - depends on your outlook, but it remains a powerful piece of cinema.

Ted Post’s excellent 1973 follow-up, ‘Magnum Force’ was designed as a rebuttal to critical claims that its predecessor had glorified might over right with fascistic fervour. It puts Harry firmly to the left of David Soul’s death-squad of overzealous motorcycle cops who are executing the big-hitters of the Frisco crime scene. Commentary this time comes from gung-ho scriptwriter John Milius, who seems barely familiar with the finished film and simply drones on about himself and the various firearms on show.

The flat lighting, scaled back production values and weak script of ‘The Enforcer’ (‘76) suggest little care has been taken and that Eastwood was by now using these sequels to fund more personal projects. This time Harry’s lumbered with a rookie female partner, while the ‘baddies’ are a bunch of jittery student reactionaries with a largely undisclosed racial manifesto. The finale, where Harry chases around Alcatraz with a bazooka, exemplifies the lack of ideas on show.

Although the highest grossing of the films, and containing the famous “Make my day” line, ‘83’s self-directed ‘Sudden Impact’ feels nothing like a Harry Callahan adventure. Clint is packed off to a small seaside town and his .44 Magnum – as much as a character in the films as the Golden Gate Bridge or Lalo Schifrin’s jazz/funk score – is traded in for some gimmicky hand-cannon. The commentary track is once again by Shickel, and even he, by this time, admits the series is listing.

But it was still a country mile better than 1988’s ‘The Dead Pool’, which plays out like a staggeringly violent episode of ‘Murder, She Wrote’ as the cast and crew of a schlock-horror film start getting bumped off in a variety of ridiculous ways. It’s a dire, negligible entry that doesn’t even make the ninety-minute mark.

With Clint rumoured to be bringing Harry out of retirement for the upcoming ‘Gran Torino’, one can only hope that as both director and star he goes back to the no-nonsense approach of the first couple of films. Because if the decline of this series proves anything, it’s that a man’s gotta know his limitations…