Dirty Harry, a review by Jon
Dirty Harry5 out of 5
A rooftop sniper (Andy Robinson) calling himself Scorpio has killed twice and holds the city ransom with the threat of killing again. Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) is a tough, streetwise San Francisco cop whom they call Dirty Harry, will nail him one way or the other, no matter what the 'system' prescribes.A new independent spirit had come into Hollywood in the 60s and in Peter Yate’s Bullitt (1968) starring ice-cool Steve McQueen, you could find a fascinating film built on the tradition of Hollywood thrillers yet mixed with a more European, introspective edge. Still, along with Frank Sinatra in the same years The Detective, little had really changed. Both could have been released in some form 20 years earlier.
Not so in Dirty Harry, one of the biggest milestones in modern action cinema. It seems to me a disillusioned, hurting America produces the best sort of films, or at least willing audiences. Consider the 1966 Miranda case was adding insult to the injury of Vietnam, while a true psychopath had held San Francisco in panic and you can see why Dirty Harry became such an enduring icon. He was exactly what the masses wanted. An angry lawman who just wouldn’t take any more shit and so he was the perfect fantasy figure to guard the country’s morals.
Directed by Don Siegel, it was essentially a Western, but audiences weren’t in the mood for period metaphors; they needed Harry Callaghan on their streets, right at that moment. As Hitchcock did with Vertigo and Yates with Bullitt, Siegel puts San Francisco front and centre. Almost as if Harry is an extension of the city itself (David Fincher’s Zodiac makes a nice reference to the films approach too). Clint Eastwood couldn’t have been any more perfect, considering his Dollars work. Although relatively early, this still endures as one of his best parts. He cuts an imposing figure, delivers classic hard witty dialogue with a trademark growl and a cold stare. It perhaps shows just how good an actor he is, because by all accounts, Clint Eastwood is a gentle, kind hearted man, bordering on shy.
Yet it is a truly violent film. Not so much in the gritty action, though it has its share of uncomfortable moments, but in character, mood and in the irony of making the viewer even more aggrieved as Scorpio gets what amounts to police protection due to crippling policies that defy common sense. Thanks, Miranda! Andy Robinson is terribly convincing as a baby-faced perverse villain with perverse habits (very Joker like) and the film isn’t interested in where he came from or why he does these awful things (he’s possibly just as angry and confused as everyone else). It’s a film about delivering cathartic retribution.
It’s very much a 70s film, with a jazz-y score, and a focus more on passive action and style in long wide shots, rather than a convoluted mystery to solve. Still, it is a strong story, with an intriguing undercurrent of sexual deviancy: very subtle, but consider how the scene when Harry is accused of voyeurism essentially makes voyeurs of the audience, or Scorpio paying for someone to beat him up. It’s another angle on the depraved society breeding violence that Harry will surely go some way to clean up.
There hadn’t been anything like Dirty Harry before and there possibly wouldn’t be again until First Blood (although even that can’t claim such wide appeal). Obviously it inspired the cliché of a maverick cop, delivering street-level punishment with a bullet and without a shred of paperwork; and it can probably be blamed in some part for the style revenge movies follow like Death Wish, which are abhorrent in how they project indignation onto the viewer. Dirty Harry was a film of its time and will always be relevant because of that. It, unlike all the pretenders since, had a reason to exist. Modern equivalents may claim some social relevance, but are generally just too noisy, because the first rule now is to entertain in set-piece led plots. Up until Dirty Harry, it wasn’t quite acceptable to say just how cool you found watching such violence. Now it’s a requirement.
(From Dirty Harry Marathon on February 8th, 2010)
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May 20, 2024, 08:41:24 AM
