Clint Eatwood 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 be-
gan 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 direc-
tor. A couple of these were better than what the movie critics of the
time rated them, but i wont go there now, they`ll 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 mo-
vies 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
& 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 ac-
tion scenes with the underlying dark atmosphere of the San Francis-
co 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 sec-
ond favourite, and i would have to say that the third installment,
`The Enforcer` which come out in 1976 eight years prior to Sudden
Impact, was a little hamstrung by a manufactured storyline about
the People`s Revolutionary Strike Force. Respectable police film,
but all the breaks in the plot which Eastwood`s rambling new `fe-
male` 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 probaly one of
the most original ones you would get. Instead of Harry going af-
ter the scumbags on the streets of San Francisco, he ends up go-
ing after a hit squad of motorcyle vigilante cops who are led by
the secretely corrupt Lieutenant Briggs. Briggs cant stand Harry
Callahan, he even tries to get him demoted out of homocide 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 mo-
vie Callahan is approached by the four man rookie vigilante
squad under Briggs` command to join the squad or be a trait-
or 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 & punch drunk Briggs in-
forms Callahan that he is going to have him charged for
killing police officers, Callahan wasn`t going to take
that sort of chit and he detinated the mail bomb which
was intended to kill him while Briggs remained seated
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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