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Clint Eastwood and his signature .44 Magnum stand ready to enforce before San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge on this poster for James Fargo's The Enforcer
A group of revolutionary maniacs rage and rob a mass of explosive weapon in San Francisco, while uncompromising hood-hunter detective Harry Callahan is popular and then unpopular with the city's populist mayor.
The ideological fronts are clearly drawn (as usual) here in the third film in the Dirty Harry franchise, which is less original than the two preceding chapters. Clint Eastwood (Rawhide (1959-65)) is still awfully enjoyable as the titular enforcer Callahan, and here he gets Tyne Daly (Christy (1994-95)) as his new partner. The plot - although fairly ludicrous, - does entail enough corny fun and action to entertain fans of Eastwood and Dirty Harry fairly well. But don't expect The Enforcer to invent or add anything really new to the police action genre.
The Enforcer is written by Stirling Silliphant (Over the Top (1987)) and Dean Riesner (Charley Varrick (1973)), based on a script by Gail Morgan Hickman (The Equalizer (1989), TV-series) and S.W. Schurr, and directed by debuting James Fargo (Forced Vengeance (1982)), who was previously a second unit director.
Listen to Jerry Fielding's score from the movie here
Cost: 9 mil. $
Box office: 46.2 mil. $ (North America only)
= Some uncertainty - but at least a big hit and probably a huge hit
[The Enforcer was released 22 December (North America) and runs 96 minutes. The first script was by San Francisco area film students Hickman and Schurr, who got it to Eastwood through his Carmel restaurant The Hog's Breath Inn. Eastwood intended to direct the film himself but was too busy after taking over directing on his western The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) and instead promoted his assistant director Fargo. Shooting took place in California, mostly in San Francisco in and around June 1976. The film became the 9th highest-grossing film in North America of 1976 and the highest-grossing Dirty Harry picture until the next one in 1983. The Enforcer was intended to be the last in a Dirty Harry trilogy, but audience demand - and Eastwood's willingness to perform in exchange for funding for his more personal projects, - brought Eastwood's Dirty Harry back for two more films; Sudden Impact (1983) and The Dead Pool (1988). Fargo followed the film up with Caravans (1978), and Eastwood returned in The Gauntlet (1977). The Enforcer is fresh at 79 % with a 6.3/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
An original, virile poster for Buddy Van Horn's The Dead Pool
QUICK REVIEW:
Fame catches up with Detective Harry Callahan of the SFPD, who gets a new, Asian martial arts expert partner and a new assignment: A celebrity-killing serial killer maniac. Dead Pool is a highly entertaining, appealingly compact sequel, (at just 91 minutes it is both the crime action movie series' last and shortest entry). It is definitely better than the first of the four sequels, the series' most commercially successful film, Magnum Force (1973). - Because the 80s truly shine through, and also because the film presents an imaginative story with some fun characters: Jim Carrey (Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994)) as a heroin junkie rock star; Liam Neeson (Schindler's List (1993)) as an a-hole movie director, and Patricia Clarkson (Six Feet Under (2002-05)) as a sweet blond. - And Guns N' Roses cameos in the film. Clint Eastwood (Dirty Harry (1971)), the center of it all, is in physical top shape here, where he SPOILER ultimately gets to harpoon the villain! The Dead Pool is written by Steve Sharon, based on a story by him, Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw (Firefox (1982), scientific advisors, both), and directed by stunt man and stunt coordinator on more than 100 films Buddy Van Horn, who also directed three: Besides Dead Pool, the other two are also Eastwood vehicles; Any Which Way You Can (1980) and Pink Cadillac (1989).
A young Patricia Clarkson in Buddy Van Horn's The Dead Pool
An equally young Jim Carrey also in Buddy Van Horn's The Dead Pool
A flying car --- a trick that never grows old --- in Buddy Van Horn's The Dead Pool
Watch the original trailer here
Cost: 31 mil. $ Box office: 37.9 mil. $ (US only) = Uncertainty [Without international figures, it is not possible to tell if Dead Pool made a profit. It seems likely it just broke even theatrically or perhaps even incurred a minor loss.] What do you think of The Dead Pool? And the other four Dirty Harry movies?
Clint Eastwood strikes a humorous tough-guy pose on this poster for Don Siegel's Dirty Harry
QUICK REVIEW:
Detective Harry Callahan from the San Francisco Police Department hunts the Bay area's feared, lunatic Scorpio serial killer. Dirty Harry is a true classic: A groundbreaking crime actioner and one of the all-time great San Francisco movies. It contains lots of concepts that were later recycled; from the pay phone instructions (reused in Die Hard: With a Vengeance (1995)) and the chilling stadium at night scene (reused in The Fan (1996)) to the out-of-control bus scene (reused in Speed (1994)), - and that's not even mentioning Clint Eastwood's (Gran Torino (2008)) title hero, the hard-punching 'Dirty' Harry Callahan, who has been emulated in a vast number of films, besides becoming a franchise figure (Eastwood has starred in four sequels) and a trademark character throughout Eastwood's career, who in a way got 'his' last film in the masterpiece Gran Torino, which is not officially about Dirty Harry, but in a way seems to be the character's swan song anyway. The screenplay is written by Harry Julia Fink and Rita M. Fink (Cahill (1973)) and Dean Riesner (The Enforcer (1976)) with uncredited contributions from John Milius (Apocalypse Now (1979)) and Jo Heims (Play Misty for Me (1971)). Dirty Harry is extremely entertaining and well-made by master filmmaker Don Siegel (Escape from Alcatraz (1979)), and Eastwood, who, impressively, did all of his own stunts in the film, rocks in it. - A number of older, more experienced stars at the time were offered the part; Robert Mitchum, Frank Sinatra, John Wayne and Burt Lancaster, who all turned it down. - Luckily for everyone, I think. Andrew Robinson (Hellraiser (1987)) also gives a hair-raising, unforgettable great villain's performance as the Scorpio madman, who was modeled on the authentic Zodiac killer, later portrayed in David Fincher's great Zodiac (2007).
Cost: 4 mil. $ Box office: 35.9 mil. $ (US only) = Huge hit [Dirty Harry was met with protests by angry feminists and has become an oft-cited example when debating vigilante or brutal police work. Roger Ebert denounced the film's "fascist moral position." But movie audiences loved it, and it became the 5th highest grossing film of 1971. Unfortunately, I can find very few figures about the film's performance internationally.] What do you think of Dirty Harry?
