I hear Shia LeBouef is available.
"Dirty Harry" Callahan...
- Thread starter Warped9
- Start date
D'oh! I actually did know that - stupid brain freeze!
Yes. Even when Harry kills Scorpio at the end, it's not an execution. He gives Scorpio the same chance to surrender that he gave the bank robber earlier in the film. Scorpio chooses to try his luck instead, and pays for this misjudgment with his life.
It's also worth noting that Harry waits until after this final confrontation to throw away his badge. So long as he remains a police officer, he follows the rules--or at least, his rather loose interpretation thereof. Instead of just assassinating Scorpio, at no risk to himself, he fires in self-defence.
I do think, however, that the film is problematic in other ways. In particular, I think Harry's behaviour is acceptable only because of the film's narrative structure. The film's omniscient narrator shows events from both Harry's perspective, and Scorpio's. As a consequence, there is no doubt in the viewer's mind about Scorpio's guilt, and Harry's actions are much easier to justify than they would be in real life. The fact that Scorpio is portrayed as a sadistic racist monster, without any redeeming or even human qualities, also helps make Harry's behaviour more acceptable than it would otherwise be.
I am similarly ambivalent about Magnum Force. On the one hand, this film makes an excellent point about the inevitable consequences of vigilantism. Although our legal systems let many guilty people go free, they do this because it's preferable to the alternative--namely, punishing the innocent. The film's motorcycle-cop death squad not only kills innocent people--they even kill other cops. And Harry, to his credit, is very clear about the slippery nature of this particular slope: pretty soon, he says, you're executing your neighbour because his dog pisses on your lawn. Harry may hate the system, as he puts it, but until something better comes along, he'll stick with it.
The problem, in my opinion, is that the film is trying to have its cake and eat it too. Instead of acknowledging that the first film was just a fantasy, it tries to justify the first film's position with an even more unlikely fantasy, and represents Harry as the moderate middle between anarchy and fascism. When really, there's nothing moderate about the film's position at all. The problem is still an excessive concern for the rights of scumbags, and the answer is still to loosen the rules and let the Dirty Harries of this world do what needs to be done. And I don't subscribe to either the film's analysis, or its proposed solution
So, while I enjoy both films, and even have them in my DVD collection, they are definitely guilty pleasures. The remaining three films in the series are pretty forgettable, in my opinion. I would also be opposed to any remake, simply because these films were so much a product of their times. I don't think the character has much contemporary relevance.
You make some interesting points, but nearly any film or work of fiction is dependent on the POV being shown. Clearly the movie is a not a realistic depiction of what would happen to someone like Harry (and was not intended to be). If one demands realism, Harry would have been on desk duty from almost the beginning of the movie, while internal affairs reviewed the circumstances of the bank robbery he stopped.
In addition, I think the movie does touch a little on what you mention about how people would not necessarily be as accepting of Harry's behavior as the film makes the audience. There's the TV reporters who think Harry beat the crap out of Scorpio and the D.A. who blasts Harry for violating Scorpio's rights during the search and interrogation (going so far as telling Harry he's lucky that HE wasn't indicted).
This. And I would say that Clint agrees, insofar as "Gran Torino" was, in many ways, his statement to that effect.
I just watched Gran Torino again last night. Not only a damn good film, but I think it's one of Eastwood's best works. And there are indeed aspects of it that resonate back to the Dirty Harry films just as Unforgiven (another great) echoes back to the Eastwood's '60's spaghetti westerns.
^ I remember when GT was announced, some sources said that it was going to be a new Dirty Harry movie.
Well it isn't hard to connect Walt Kowalski as an older Harry Callahan. Much of the temperament is very similar as is the inclination to take action when faced with a problem. There's also the cynicism with the world at large in general.
Part of what got me when watching the film is that I'm only 52 and I could so easily identify with Kowalski in so many ways.
Sudden Impact was the first Callahan movie I actually saw in the theater and aside from Sondra Locke, I thought it was passable. I would go so far as to say she completely made the movie unwatchable, as bad as she is/was...
I really can't stand her as an actress.. There's just something about her I don't like..
She was also the worst part about the "Any Which Way You Can" movies, but I can still watch the first one because it's funny as hell. "Left turn, Clyde!"....
^ I saw it in a cinema in a boat on a school trip. It was all very exciting, getting in to see an 18s at age 13 but I feel asleep cos the fecking movie was so boring! lol
Anyone remember the short-lived TV show Lady Blue? Critics dubbed it "Dirty Harriet".
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfdOvwIWaaQ&feature=player_detailpage[/yt]
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfdOvwIWaaQ&feature=player_detailpage[/yt]
I think SI is the one movie where she works as an actress, largely because she is supposed to be playing an emotionally damaged woman.
Bit of trivia, BTW: Locke was the model for Abby Arcane in the Moore/Bissette run of Swamp Thing.
^ I like her in Josey Wales. But I like pretty much everything about that movie.
Great movies even after all these years.
I love the first two, and The Enforcer is fun. But after that it kind of drops off. Sudden Impact sort of works for the first half, but once Harry leaves San Fran and starts helping Locke's character, it turns into lifetime of the movie drama.
I have a fondness for Dead Pool, but only because I saw it when I was real little and latched onto the remote control car chase.
I have a fondness for Dead Pool, but only because I saw it when I was real little and latched onto the remote control car chase.
The first two are great. Enforcer is rubbish as a thriller, has not much action, but is surprisingly funny. Sudden Impact is OK at first (the stuff with the mob guys) but goes downhill when he heads for the small town. Dead Pool is just a rubbish pastiche, really.
I always thought they should have done a post-Unforgiven one where Harry had to deal with normal life after being pensioned-off, cos being a cop was everything to him, and Gran Torino so nearly does that...
I always thought they should have done a post-Unforgiven one where Harry had to deal with normal life after being pensioned-off, cos being a cop was everything to him, and Gran Torino so nearly does that...
I loved that show!
Favorite moment: a flasher rips his coat open at her. She looks, gets a sad face, says "Oh you poor man." Takes his arm gently and arrests him as he starts crying.
