Review of Dirty Harry (1971) by Blake P — 21 Dec 2014

"You know, you're crazy if you think you've heard the last of this guy. He's gonna kill again," Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) sighs to his superior. A maniac (a fantastic Andrew Robinson) is on the loose, killing anybody who comes to his liking, usually on the edges of rooftops with a polished sniper rifle. His wild, long blond hair blows in the wind with the prowess of a lion ready for an attack, his deranged face snarling with noxious elation. He is the Scorpio, a murderer who finds himself amused when blood spills onto his hands. Callahan has done everything to stop him, yet he has escaped the grip of authority with aggravating repetition.

Unfortunately for the so-called Scorpio, Callahan is no Frank Bullitt and is definitely not a Jacques Clouseau-type. Carrying a .44 magnum, which he dubs "the most powerful gun in the world," Callahan is unflinchingly acerbic, humorless, and unafraid to sidestep the law and take justice into his own hands.

When "Dirty Harry" was released in 1971, it was a new kind of cop movie. It was one with an outrageous amount of violence and one with a lack of a moral compass. Simply put, it was a source of serious controversy. Police brutality was something left untouched by most American films, and to have a hero slightly deranged himself was something far and away from the well-defined good guy/bad guy cliché. But to take "Dirty Harry" seriously would be like viewing a comic book with a realistic lens; it's a piece of seedy pulp that takes the police thriller genre and stretches it out with operatic carnage and dark alley sleaziness.

The streets of San Francisco are like the frames of a graphic novel, colored with dim electric light by night and saturated with disconcerting warmth by day. The film lives in a world where crime runs around with menace, becoming nearly casual to its citizens. Harry Callahan is like Batman, minus the suit, Batmobile, immortal sidekick, and underground lair.

He is most well-defined in an early scene where he sits down in a diner for a midday snack. That moment of peace, though, is interrupted when he notices a bank robbery in progress across the street. A few of the criminals have been gunned down, but one lies on the steps of the entrance, bleeding and moaning. Rather than arrest him, Callahan is inspired to taunt him, make him transform from predator to prey in a matter of seconds. He deadpans his way through a mini-speech that seems prewritten as he cocks his gun: "I know what you're thinking. 'Did he fire six shots or only five?' This is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world. It would blow you head clean off. You've gotta ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?'" We discover that the thief is lucky - Callahan has fired all six shots.

But it becomes clear later on that he most likely already knew that all six shots were fired. When it comes to a dirty criminal, however, why not play a sick game of Russian Roulette? Callahan would prefer to teach brutal lessons and give bad guys a taste of their own medicine; Miranda rights and the amendments are for sissies.

Harry Callahan was the original tough-guy detective, remaining to be a brute force of fortitude and pointed courage. Without Eastwood, he wouldn't have that ominous edge by his side. It's a performance of precise emotion. He delivers every line with a diverting softly spoken voice, only to later explode with an awesome capability for violence. As he whispers his few words, we can only wonder what's going on in his head. Callahan is such a legendary figure in cinema because every move he makes is recognizable, embedded into the foreboding underbellies of neo-noir. "Dirty Harry" is iconic for a reason: few cop movies have been able to thrill without the slight glitter of Hollywood lure. It can be sickeningly violent, but that's only because one foot is glued on action and the other is on realism.