Dirty Harry (1971): The movie opens with a faceless sniper killing a woman swimming in a rooftop pool. Inspector Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) gets the case. The killer, who calls himself Scorpio, left a note in which he demands a ransom to stop his killing spree. Using clues in the note and a helicopter sighting, Harry and his new partner, Chico Gonzalez (Reni Santoni), sit in wait to ambush the assassin. Though they spot him, he escapes. Scorpio kidnaps a teenaged girl and buries her; give him the ransom or she suffocates. The mayor is eager to just pay the ransom and Harry is picked to deliver it. He runs around the city to satisfy Scorpio that he isn't being followed. Disarmed and isolated, it looks like Harry is about to become the latest victim but then Chico arrives. Though Scorpio (Andrew Robinson) escapes again, he's wounded and Harry tracks him to his lair, where he 'extracts' the location of the missing girl. Thanks to his excessive force, Scorpio is released from custody. The movie has the clear message that courts are too lenient on offenders while ignoring their victims. Paul Newman turned down the part as too right-wing for him. Of particular note, Harry uses a .44 magnum revolver. This is his signature gun and helps define the character. Great film and highly recommended.
Magnum Force (1973): Carmine Ricca has just left court, escaping a murder conviction on a technicality. He's hardly left downtown San Francisco than he is pulled over by a motorcycle cop. The cop kills everyone in the car and rides off. Harry stops by the crime scene with his partner, Early Smith (Felton Perry), but it's not his case. Lt. Briggs (Hal Holbrook) admonishes him about abandoning his stakeout. Further killings by a motorcycle cop lead Harry to believe his old pal, Charlie McCoy (Mitchell Ryan), might be the killer. Charlie is recently divorced and his ex-wife says he's suicidal. But then Charlie is found dead. While at the range one night, Harry meets four rookie cops who are surprisingly good shots. Davis (David Soul) is the leader and best shot. It is soon clear that the four rookies are operating as a death squad, killing criminals who escape justice. They try to recruit Harry but he declines. Where the last movie decried the justice system, this one defends it as the best we have. Harry is no vigilante and doesn't approve of them. Thanks to his role in this movie, David Soul was soon after cast in Starsky and Hutch. Robert Urich, who appeared as one of the rookies, went on to Vegas. This is probably the best Dirty Harry movie.
The Enforcer (1976): Two men in a gas company truck are lured to a remote cabin by a hot blonde. They have hardly arrived before Bobby Maxwell (DeVeren Bookwalter) kills them. He and his small band call themselves the People's Revolutionary Strike Force (PRSF). Meanwhile, Harry and DiGeorgio (John Mitchum) respond to a hostage situation at a botched robbery. Harry drives his car into the building and shoots the robbers. This does not endear him to Captain McKay. He is reassigned to personnel. One of the applicants for promotion to inspector is Kate Moore (Tyne Daly). Harry is horrified that she has never made an arrest and views her as unqualified. The PRSF use the gas truck to bluff their way into a weapons depot where they start loading M-16s, explosives, and even LAW rockets into the truck. Thanks to the heist, Harry is back in homicide and has a new partner, Inspector Kate Moore! The PRSF use their hardware to kidnap the mayor and then demand a ransom. Harry and Kate track them to Alcatraz and rescue the mayor while killing all the members of the PRSF. It is now standard that Harry's partner is toast. Chico was shot in the first movie and decided to leave the force. Early was killed by a bomb. Moore follows the pattern, not surviving the film. Of note, her appearance here led to her role in Cagney and Lacey. There are stand-ins for the Black Panthers and the Symbionese Liberation Army, echoing events of the era. Thanks to the death of DiGeorgio, John Mitchum marked his 3rd and final appearance in the series. Overall, this one is a bit weak on account of the finale. Why are just Harry and Kate headed to Alcatraz? Mostly good and definitely recommended.
Sudden Impact (1983): A couple are making out on a remote overlook of San Francisco Bay. Suddenly, the woman shoots the man, once in the crotch and once in the head. Ten years earlier, Jennifer Spencer (Sondra Locke) and her sister were raped in San Paulo; she is now out for vengeance. Callahan is assigned the investigation and learns the dead man hails from San Paulo. Thanks to multiple high-profile shootouts and destroyed police vehicles, Harry is banished to San Paulo. The local police chief (Pat Hingle) gives him a cold reception. Their relationship grows more strained when a local man is found dead, one bullet to his crotch and one to his head. It is soon clear to the rapists that Jennifer has returned to make them pay. Despite that, she takes out a couple more of them. By then, Harry has figured out that she is the murderer. However, the last of the rapists has turned the tables and now Jennifer must run for her life on the very beach where she was raped. A very different Dirty Harry film, this is Jennifer's story. To give Harry some action, he is pursued by mafia assassins and released criminals. He also gets a new gun: a .44 AutoMag. And he has a dog named Meathead. Harry seems a bit of a caricature of himself with the tacked on action scenes, some of which unfold awkwardly. Bad guys stand around while Harry monologues and then he somehow gets the drop on them. This marks the last appearance of Sondra Locke with Clint Eastwood. She had been a regular in his films since the Outlaw Josey Wales (1976). This also marked the 4th and final appearance of Albert Popwell. Popwell played a different character in each movie, dying in two of them. The best thing about this installment was the catch phrase: Make my day!
The Dead Pool (1988): Johnny Squares (Jim Carrey) has died of an overdose on the film set of Hotel Satan, Peter Swan's (Liam Neeson) latest horror film. Harry and his new partner, Al Quan (Evan Kim), are called upon to check for foul play. While there, Callahan has a run-in with Samantha Walker (Patricia Clarkson), a news reporter who soon becomes Harry's love interest. Though Swan was not initially a suspect in Johnny Squares' death, the revelation of a dead pool in which Swan had selected Squares puts him in the crosshairs. Harry also happens to be on Swan's list. As more victims on Swan's list die, it looks like he might be rigging the pool. However, he is cleared and the focus turns to a scorned fan. Discovering that his plot to frame Swan has failed, the fan pencils Samantha Walker onto the list and lures her to an exclusive interview. Will Harry arrive in time to save the day? The weakest of the series, this is just an excuse to get Harry back in action. As with the last film, he's marked for death by some random crime lord and must gun down countless goons that have nothing to do with the central storyline. Also echoing Sudden Impact, a band of criminals who have already killed a restaurant patron stand motionless while Harry delivers a monologue before gunning them down. Of note, Guns N' Roses band members have cameos and the song "Welcome to the Jungle" is part of the sound track.
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