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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
You lookin' at me punk?, 12 Oct 2003
In the 70's, movies were getting a bit more violent, and moving towards action rather than the 60s western, where the good guys always won. Don Segal decided to focus on cops that were not prepared to follow the new policing rules, and handled things in their own way. Bring on Inspector Callahan, a no nonsense cop in a crazy world, where drugs, muggings and bank robberies were a daily occurance in San Francisco. Harry wasn't ready to let it all go to hell, he was ready to fight.This is the first outing for Harry, and the first few minutes of the movie show us that Harry isn't going to back down or "go soft", just because they mayor wants him to stop pulling out his Magnum 45, a very powerful handgun, and start laying down the law, and bringing the state police a lot of charges to them. So his boss Bresslier has just had enough, and places him with rookie cop Chico Gonzalez, who's more suited to a classroom than to the confinment of police life. The guys are sent out on a mission to arrest a crazed man who's going to kill a child or a black person for $1million, so Harry has to act quick. The film follows Harry as he makes his investigations of crimes, like when Scorpio kills a child on the beach, shoots a black man in the middle of a green and the threats he keeps sending them through the San Francisco Cronicle. Gonzarles finds out why Harry's called "Dirty Harry", because he has to do every bad job around, as he gets called to a guy ready to jump. Of course, Harry gets him down, but it's not usual methods he uses. The film has great scenes, like when Harry goes up to one of the gunmen after the bank robbery and makes his legendary speech; which makes the man very scared because he's playing Russian Roulette with his life. Harry knows well what's going on, but he likes to use fear to make people do what they have to do. Another example is when he makes it to the football ground and finds Scorpio, and runs to the middle of the field, and threatens to shoot him if he doesn't help him find the little girl. The music is excellent in this film, Lalo Schifrin, with his jazzy and funky soundtrack which illustrates the highs and lows. The music compliments the pictures, and brings a certain mood to the picture. The instrumentation is excellent, and the use of strings to bring preasure is just perfect. The film also brings in a lot of personal feelings, like when Scorpio uses the media to make him look like the victime, this is quite a new skill used by Don Segal, and was quite revolutionary. Also Harry's attitude is well documented, with his masterpiece scene in the DA's office "What about that girl's rights?" He brought up quite a few things to think about, which is always good in a movie of this genre. In conclusion, this film is great, the scenes are well done and well filmed for their time; and the remastering brings a lot of colour to the screen and texture to the soundtrack. Listening to this in 5.1 surround gives it a whole different angle, which is amazing. Also the script is of a high class. If you don't get this, you're missing out on the best cop movie ever made. Clint Eastwood and Andrew Robinson made the movie what it is, great direction from Don Segal. You won't regret this purchase.
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