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Dirty Harry: Difference between revisions
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{{work}}
[[File:Dirty_Harry_6418.jpg|frame|
{{quote|''"Go ahead, make my day."''|'''Harry Callahan''', ''Sudden Impact''}}
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* ''The Dead Pool'' (1988): Callahan investigates a series of celebrity deaths who had been predicted to die in a ''dead pool'' racket -- and finds that his own name is on the list.
The first movie in the franchise was named to the [[National Film Registry]] in 2012.
{{tropelist}}
* [[Accidental Pervert]]: "Now I know why they [[Incredibly Lame Pun|call you]] Dirty Harry."
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* [[Dead Partner]]: Pretty much all of Callahan's partners end up dead or in the hospital, as he notes.
* [[Description Porn]]:
{{quote|{{
* [[Double Don't Know]]: In ''The Enforcer'', one of the terrorists wants to know something:
{{quote|'''Bobby''': Did Wanda deliver the [Ransom Note] tape to the cops?
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*** And since she {{spoiler|gets shot in the end, he might have even been right.}}
** Which doubles as the [[Idiot Ball]] for her superiors who assign inexperienced policeman to a [[Cowboy Cop|Maverick Cop]] whose partners wind up wounded or killed in action and who tends to take the most dangerous cases.
*** It was implied that her superiors weren't enthused with the 'female detective' idea either, that it was being forced on them by higher echelons, and that they assigned her to Harry with deliberate intent to make sure the experiment failed as hard as possible.
** The conversation with Gonzales was more hazing the new guy than real bigotry:
{{quote|Di Georgio: Ah that's one thing about our Harry. Doesn't play any favorites! [[Hates Everyone Equally|Harry hates everybody.]] Limeys, Micks, Hebes, Fat Dagos, Niggers, Honkies, Chinks, you name it.
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** And his partner could also have laid charges; he was close by and saw the whole thing, and Scorpio shot at him, too.
*** You're forgetting that Scorpio did all that while wearing a balaclava.
**** The fact that Scorpio has a fresh knife
**** Presumably they also have a recording of Scorpio's voice from the ransom call. Police department forensics started using voiceprint identification in 1967.
**** And while its a bit early for DNA matching, a simple blood type matching between Scorpio and what the masked assailant left all over Harry's knife would add more circumstantial evidence to the pile.
** The movie makes one legal error when it invalidates the evidence Harry finds in Scorpio's audience due to lack of a search warrant. Since Scorpio is not a legal tenant of the groundskeeper's shack (while the groundskeeper was letting him use it, since the groundskeeper does not have the authority to rent stadium space to tenants its still not ''legal'' without the groundskeeper getting permission from someone more senior to him, which he did not. (Analogy: the landlord can legally let someone stay in an apartment building for free, but the janitor can't.)
** The same thing happens at the beginning of ''[[Sudden Impact]]'', although we only see the trial.
* [[Oh Crap]]: In ''Sudden Impact'', when the man that raped Jennifer Spencer and his friends are about to repeat the "experience" when one of them says "Crap". Cue Harry Callahan with a [[BFG]], ready for the men to make his day.
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** Also, {{spoiler|he follows through on the latter}}. Needless to say, {{spoiler|the black guy Scorpio pays to beat him up so he can frame Callahan for it}} sure seems to enjoy the job. He kicks Scorpio again after throwing him out the door, saying "[[Crowning Moment of Funny|this one's on the house!]]"
* [[Pyrrhic Victory]]: Part 1 and 3.
** Arguably, also Part 2. Just imagine the fallout of {{spoiler|Briggs' conspiracy}},
* [[Rape and Revenge]]: Forms the plot of Sudden Impact.
* [[Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil]]: Harry responds to the mayor's policies on police brutality with the fact that he "shoots the bastard" when it comes to intent to rape. Also, he lets Jennifer off the hook with her revenge killings of her rapists when Mick is found with the murder weapon on his person.
** In the example of the rapist in the alleyway, the part where he was chasing a woman while brandishing a deadly weapon with obvious intent to use it (the butcher knife) made shooting him 100% legal.
* [[Reassigned to Antarctica]]: Harry starts ''Magnum Force'' in the Stakeout Squad, and in ''The Enforcer'' gets reassigned to Personnel after ram-raiding a hostage situation.
{{quote|'''Harry:''' Personnel? But that's for assholes!
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** But it just doesn't add up. Harry spends most of his time complaining about how the system doesn't work, he rarely manages to convict any of his suspects, so he often ends up shooting them, he never follows the rules and yet, according to the logic of this film, he's somehow FOR the system? How does that work?
*** "Briggs, I hate the goddamned system. But until somebody comes along with some changes that make sense, I'll stick with it!"
*** It works because Harry's dissatisfaction with the system and his opposition to the vigilante cops are ultimately rooted in the same impulse: Harry believes in justice. Its unjust when some shithead like Scorpio sleazes away on a technicality. It's also unjust when some yahoo cops are running around shooting whoever they feel like, especially if that results in the deaths of innocent cops and bystanders.
** He shoots them if they are in the process of committing a crime; he doesn't hunt them down and kill in their home or when they are driving around, never mind that the bad guys didn't stop at the criminals, but killed witnesses, innocent bystanders, {{spoiler|Harry's partner, ''their own partner''}}, and anyone who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. With explosives and machine guns too, so they clearly aren't worried about collateral damage. And unlike Harry, they were ''enjoying'' it; [[The Reveal]] even comes when you see one of them cheerfully smiling for the camera after {{spoiler|murdering another cop.}} They are in it for the glory and the thrill as much as any pretensions of justice.
** Callahan also resorts to lethal force only in self-defense and when facing extremely dangerous criminals (like the psychopathic Scorpio). He is perfectly happy if the criminals end up behind bars instead of six feet under. The first scene when ''do I feel lucky'' speech appears shows this well. Callahan actually taunts the robber to grab the gun, so he might could him in self-defense, but leaves calmly when the robber yields, even though seconds earlier the latter tried to kill and even managed to wound Harry.
*** Harry isn't trying to taunt the robber into grabbing the gun so he can shoot him; he's bluffing him into giving it up because ''Harry's gun is empty''.
** In fact, Harry never once, throughout the entire series, ever kills a person illegally. ''Every'' time he puts a bullet in someone it is a perfectly justified police shooting, by the normal law enforcement rules of engagement. The only reason he gets hassled by the system over it so much is because his boss is an asshole.
*** Also because Harry has many ''non''-lethal uses of force that are not justified and often qualify as outright police brutality, thus casting a suspicious context over any other actions Harry takes -- even the legal ones. Harry might be scrupulously clean about killing people but he's far less clean about when and how he roughs them up a little, and that creates no end of problems for him.
* [[Villainous Breakdown]]: Scorpio seems to suffer it every time his plans are thwarted, like when he is caught and shot in the leg by Callahan in the stadium.
* [[Wag the Director]]: Eastwood apparently took over a lot of the directorial duties on ''Magnum Force'' after the director that they originally hired turned out not to be up to the job.
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{{reflist}}
{{AFI's 100 Years 100 Heroes and Villains}}
{{Best in Film: The Greatest Movies of Our Time}}
[[Category:Film]]
[[Category:Film Series]]
▲[[Category:Films of the 1980s]]
[[Category:Films of the 1970s]]
[[Category:
[[Category:National Film Registry]]
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