Review of The Enforcer (1976) by Tim H — 22 Jun 2008

Jesus, Harry's got some luck. Everywhere he goes, a burglary is happening. What are the odds?

There's really nothing new covered in this third installment of the Dirty Harry franchise. I mean, in the first one, we saw Harry take the law into his own hands and thank God he did. That Scorpio killer scared the pants off of us and took a bus full of kids hostage. Part two showed us what lines Harry draws in the sand. We know that he's a cop who's above the law, but is not a vigilante or a murderer. There's limits. So that was the apology and the rounding out that the first movie didn't offer us. But what did part three offer us?

This is the last of the 70's movies and I think that I'm pretty happy that the series took a small sabbatical before coming back for Sudden Impact in the 80's. Harry's the kind of cop who deals with psycho killers and murderers, not terrorists. This one has the whole feminism theme going on with the movie and balancing that against domestic terrorist plots is just a little awkward. While there's nothing really wrong with this film, it doesn't really cover any new ground and any of Harry's rebellious attitute just seems forced in an attempt to be somewhat shocking to mainstream America.

Now, I'm pretty focused on women's rights and find that I'm a pretty open individual. But in some ways, I gotta respect Harry's opinion in this movie. (Wait, don't turn on me yet!) Now, this situation presented in the movie is a catch-22. There really is no right answer. The problem that I have is that Harry's partner has had no time in the field and has made no arrests whatsoever. Harry's killed so many people he's lost count. Really, do you want to team these people up? The catch-22 comes from the fact that the reason that his partner has no arrests because no one ever gave her a chance because of her gender. Yes, I know that there's a bit of hardassed preachiness going into this movie, but it's a weird line that this movie tried to address and, like I said earlier, it's just tacked on.

What I'm most shocked about is the fact that terrorists try taking over San Francisco and there's no crazy panic. I'm used to watching movies in a post 9/11 world, but this seems like it would be a huge deal. I mean, people were losing their cool at the Scorpio Killer. What about when an entire organization steals bazookas? I think I'd be crapping myself about that sooner than I would an individual killer. (Although, I would be terrified of the Zodiac if I was alive too...).

I think that this might be the hardest of the movie to review. I guess The Enforcer summarizes what I think about the entire Dirty Harry franchise. It's a damned good franchise and is fairly entertaining, but there's little that it is going to offer me in the long run. I watched this movie last week and I'm already forgetting parts of the movie. That's pretty sad. Again, I can't say that I was crazy disappointed, but there's nothing to this movie to get me to recommend it to others.