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Amazon.co.uk Review
Whether or not you can sympathise with its fascistic/vigilante approach to law enforcement, Dirty Harry (directed by star Clint Eastwood's longtime friend and directorial mentor, Don Siegel) is one hell of an American cop thriller. The movie makes evocative use of its San Francisco locations as cop Harry Callahan (Eastwood) tracks the elusive "Scorpio killer" who has been terrorising the city by the Bay. As the psychopath's trail grows hotter, Harry becomes increasingly impatient and intolerant of the frustrating obstacles (departmental red tape, individuals' civil rights) that he feels are keeping him from doing his job. A characteristically taut and tense piece of filmmaking from Siegel (Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Shootist, Escape from Alcatraz), it also remains a fascinating slice of American pop culture. It was a big hit (followed by four sequels) that obviously reflected--or exploited--the almost obsessive or paranoid fears and frustrations many Americans felt about crime in the streets. At a time when "law and order" was a familiar slogan for political candidates, Harry Callahan may have represented neither, but from his point of view his job was simple: stop criminals. To him that end justified any means he deemed necessary. --Jim Emerson
Special Features
English
Region 2
Region 2
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
20 of 20 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
"You've got to ask yourself, do I feel lucky? Well, do ya punk?" - This film is just superb, from the excellent camera work showing of the San Francisco location well, to the genius of Lalo Schifrin's soundtrack. For me, Clint Eastwood is not a great actor, but in this role he excels. His character is humourous yet serious, and has a dark side that you just have to take notice of. Andy Robinson is the crazy 'Scorpio' who holds the city at ransom. The plot is far fetched, which is no great surprise, but you're hooked until Scorpio is disposed of. I own this on VHS also, but the DVD is a must for the picture and sound quality. Don't buy the special edition, save yourself some cash and buy the regular version - the extra 30 minute documentary is not worth paying for. But the film is definately worth the money, buy it, watch it and savour it.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:VHS Tape
What can I say? DIRTY HARRY is a classic, slick action masterpiece which started off the renegade cop genre. Some may argue that it was THE FRENCH CONNECTION, but DH is a better film, as it's more exciting, humorous and offers more food for thought regarding its protagonist. Inspector 'Dirty' Harry Callahan is a San Francisco cop, relentless, bitter, jaded and extremely tough, who never lets anything get in his way when he's hunting criminals. Whether it be shooting a would-be rapist armed with a butcher knife or injuring a murder suspect in order to extract a confession from him, Harry immediately dispenses with the 'niceties' of the law so that he can get results. My favourite scenes of the film are when Harry foils a bank robbery with his awesome .44 Magnum handgun, when he chases mad killer Scorpio to the football ground and the action-packed finale featuring the timeless ' do you feel lucky?' line. I was amazed to find out that John Wayne, Steve McQueen, Bob Mitchum, Frank Sinatra and even Paul Newman were offered the role of Dirty Harry. With the right amount of wit, cynicism and all-out hardness, this is Clint's role. Andy Robinson did a sterling job as well, portraying the twisted psychopathic gunman, dubbed 'Scorpio'. He must be one of THE most imitated bad guys in the history of action thrillers. These days, they don't come any better than this.
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD|Amazon Verified Purchase
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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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Everyone should see it at least once.
Great soundtrack, great backdrop, great lead actor, great lines and a great big gun. That just about sums up Dirty Harry for you. Read more
Published 2 months ago by The Truth
do ya feel lucky punk
this is the all time cop classic,its a no frills tough cop thriller.harry callaghan is the hardest racialist anti feminist cop you will ever see but also fair cause he hates... Read more
Published 2 months ago by jed
Not impressed
I was told to buy this because it was 'amazing'. I totally disagree, I could not wait for it to finish and it was boring in my opinion, it got slightly better at the end but... Read more
Published 4 months ago by jwest
Top film
The first and best of the series. Clint plays a frustrated homicide detective and he's hammpered by the system which protects criminals but not victims. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Junius
Slightly censored, but still a movie great!
"Harry Callahan is a tough, streetwise San Francisco cop whom they call Dirty Harry. A rooftop sniper (Andy Robinson) named Scorpio has killed twice. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Fluclo
I know what you're thinking.....
Did I buy five films or did I buy six. Well in all this excitement I kinda lost count myself. And seeing as how this is a 102 minute DVD, the most powerful and iconic of its time,... Read more
Published 12 months ago by Squeakyboythomas
Clint Eastwood Dishes Out Punishement
I got this in the 35 Film CLINT EASTWOOD BOX SET and to be honest I had never seen the film before but many Eastwood fans loved it and now I have seen it I can see why. Read more
Published 18 months ago by PSN: Funeral-Bringer
Still good
I regularly used to watch this film on VHS. Before today, it was probably about 7 years since the last time i saw the film. Read more
Published 18 months ago by LoBo
A Film Icon
Being only 8 in 1971 when Dirty Harry came out I cannot comment on the contemporary impact of the film and the character - but almost 40 years, several (mostly inferior) sequels,... Read more
Published 19 months ago by Mr. Paul Nixon
Well don't you punk?
Totally non-politically correct but pure gold this the first Harry Calahan movie form Clint Eastwood. Read more
Published 20 months ago by J. McDonald
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