HARRY CALLAHAN NEEDED `MAGNUM FORCE` TO EXTERMINATE THE SAN FRANCISCO KILLER COPS







Clint Eastwood has always been one of my heros if there was ever a movie star who I looked up to. Never one for talking a great deal, he made a career out of creating a film persona which relied mainly on grimaces, confrontational body language and cleverly and intentionally delivered one liners which of course included his most famous statement in the fourth Dirty Harry film, Sudden Impact, which was `go ahead, make my day`. 

Dirty Harry is obviously his definitive character, Eastwood began his acting career back in the 50`s in the TV series, Rawhide, and then went on to make a string of spaghetti westerns in the mid to late 60`s under the direction of Sergio Leone, a famous Italian movie director. 

A couple of these were better than what the movie critics of the time rated them, but I wont go there now, they will make a good excuse to write a blog at a later time about Eastwood`s forays into western movies specifically. 

What I will say is that the two best western movies of Clint`s in my opinion are one from the mid 70`s and one from the mid 80`s, after Eastwood had already made some Dirty Harry films.

Clint is now 80 years old, I dont think he is up to making one more installment in the series, the last one being the rather far fetched and contrived `The Dead Pool` in 1988, a movie that gave both Liam Neeson and Jim Carrey a start in the big league of Hollywood. 

There is only one Dirty Harry film which perfectly blends high octane action scenes with the underlying dark atmosphere of the San Francisco sub-culture of the flower power era that Eastwood attempted to
capture on all five Dirty Harry movies, and that is the very first one, `Dirty Harry`. 

Most movie critics, most of whom dont have
time for Eastwood and his acting abilities of old, cite the fourth one in the series `Sudden Impact`, as the only one comparable to
the original Dirty Harry film. 

Sudden Impact would also be my second favourite, and I would have to say that the third installment,`The Enforcer` which come out in 1976 seven years prior to Sudden Impact, was a little hamstrung by a manufactured storyline about the "People`s Revolutionary Strike Force". 

Respectable police drama film, but all the breaks in the plot which Eastwood`s rambling new `female` partner causes, played by Tyne Daly, takes away much of
the tension which characterised the original film and the second Harry Callahan film which is the guest of honour tonight, 1973`s
`Magnum Force`. 

Magnum Force I know has been labelled as a
typical pissweak sequel to a landmark film, but to me it`s not a bad film at all. 

Not quite as creepy and compelling as Harry No. 1 or No. 4, but the storyline of Magnum Force is probably one of the most original ones you would get. 

Instead of Harry going after the scumbags on the streets of San Francisco, he ends up going after a hit squad of motorcycle vigilante cops who are led by the secretly corrupt Lieutenant Briggs. 

Briggs cant stand Harry Callahan, he even tries to get him demoted out of homicide into
the stakeout squad.

The only decent cop besides Callahan in the
movie is his partner Earlington Smith, played by Felton Perry. I should point out that the dark and deceptive character of Briggs is played by Hollywood veteran Hal Holbrook. 

Callahan starts to suspect that police officers and not criminals are responsible for a number of killings around San Francisco after a pimp and a heap of others get mowed down at a prostitute party. 

He lets Briggs know of his suspicions, not knowing at this stage that the lieutenant is the ring leader of this rebel police force
within the police force. 

At some stage after that in the movie Callahan is approached by the four man rookie vigilante squad under Briggs` command to join the squad or be a traitor to their demented and illegal cause. 

Callahan basically tells them to go jam it, like you would expect, not knowing that a nasty surprise in the form of a bomb is waiting for
him back home in his letterbox. 

Harry avoids getting blown up, but his luckless partner Earlington Smith is killed by a second bomb which was planted by the power crazed killer cops. 

After which Briggs arrives in a police car and asks Callahan to go with him for a drive, with Callahan driving.

You can imagine his surprise when his so-called to the book lieutenant pulls out a pistol on him and gives him a lecture on why he should have turned bad and become a member of the rebel police force. 

Callahan ends up driving Briggs to a typically uninhabited industrial outpost on the outskirts of San Francisco, when he suddenly knocks Briggs out with a killer knuckle sandwich and kills one of the motorcycle vigilantes by hitting him head on in the police car. 

Then Callahan on foot runs onto an old escort aircraft carrier, where he is confronted by another vigilante cop, where he kills him totally unarmed. 

He pinches his motorcycle, and then a game of cat and mouse ensues on the roof between
Callahan and the last rebel cop alive besides the knocked out Briggs, John Davis, played by David Soul. 

Somehow or another Callahan outwits Davis on his pet machine and he ends up riding off the roof and straight into the ocean, killing himself. 

Callahan then returns to the police car where an obviously disheveled and "punch drunk" Briggs informs Callahan that he is going to have him charged for killing police officers.

Callahan wasn`t going to take that sort of shit and he activated the mail bomb which
was intended to kill him, to kill Briggs as he drives off in the police car.

A good movie with a great sub-plot and killer twist, Magnum Force deserves to be finally
recognised as one of the great cop movies which isn`t an inferior follow up to an even greater cop movie.

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