Review of Dirty Harry (1971) by Shane S — 07 Oct 2010

This guy is the ultimate master of awesome.

Well, it's Clint friggin' Eastwood, the king of manliness, awesomeness, and everything in between. Directed by a guy known for making science fiction B-movies and starring some hotshot cowboy actor with an affinity for jazz, girls, and working solo, this collaboration by Don Siegel and Eastwood is a modern-day adaptation of "High Noon" with an emphasis on the actions of the main guys rather than the conscience of the police force themselves when concerning with how to deal with a seriously dangerous criminal. This feels like a Western; sure, it's modern, but essentially, Dirty Harry is about the resilient bounty hunter who will not rest until his target has been destroyed.

Eastwood replicated this in four direct Dirty Harrys (Magnum Force, the Enforcer, Sudden Impact, The Dead Pool), the surprisingly mediocre "Unforgiven", and (inversely) "Gran Torino". When your filmography contains loads of Dirty Harry-esque films, you know that film's timeless.

The action is shocking, the black comedy is often hilarious, and Harry is still a timeless renegade cop who will never play by the rules when danger's on the loose.

Props to Lalo Schifrin for the equally amazing score - very jazzy, very tense, very modern, and strangely like listening to a Western score if Steve Reich and Kraftwerk wrote it.

Props to Eastwood for making a reaction to the Zodiac murders of the early '70s. And props to him to show how we could've stopped him: with some snooping, a .45 Magnum, and resilience.