Review of Dirty Harry (1971) by Deanomite — 18 Feb 2020
It's important to understand this is a 50 year old movie. my only vintage memory of this is Clint Eastwood shooting black people while eating hot dogs, but I have come to respect the genre after seeing Bullitt, Point Blank, The French Connection etc.
San Francisco in the early 70s just oozes freedom and fresh air, it's on of those magical times in history. I believe it was made with the concept of police breaking the law in order to prioritize the rights of the victims over the criminals.
An original idea at the time, interesting to think it began somewhere. Bullitt did much of this as well, and better but not as bombastic as this, thanks to the writing of John Milius. This was a pioneer of killing a criminal before he commits the crime.
They laugh about beating prisoners, this was a time we trusted police and didn't need 75 cops tv shows to do it. He jokes about all the races he hates. Creeps on women in their homes. He beats and insults a guy threatening suicide.
He shoots first. He uses illegal weapons. He breaks into homes. He doesn't get search warrants. He shoots unarmed people. He doesn't read rights or allow legal counsel before questioning. He tortures criminals.
He stalks people in off hours. He causes car wrecks, involving kids, nearly shoots kids. The scorpio killer is a good character, like the Joker but 40 years ahead. The best scene is the scorpio killer paying a black guy to beat him up.
The scene with him slapping kids for not wanting to go to the ice cream factory is hilarious, it's very dysfunctional family.
This review of Dirty Harry (1971) was written by Deanomite on 18 Feb 2020.
Dirty Harry has generally received very positive reviews.
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