The Dirty Harry Collection [DVD] [1971]

The first disc is the original Dirty Harry, which has Clint Eastwood playing Harry Callahan of the San Fransico P.D. He is on the trail of a killer calling himself the Scorpio. Harry will do anything to get him including breaking the rules, a great film that ends with a climatic shootout on a school bus.

Disc 2.
This is Magnum Force which is about a group of maverick motorcycle police officers going around killing all those people that they think need to be given a good dose of justice. Once again Harry Has to stop them.

Disc 3
This is the Enforcer. The last of the good ones. This has Tyne Daley From Cagney and Lacey teaming up as Harry's partner as the go around San Fransico trying to take out a group of terroists that have kidnapped a mayor. There is a great climax at Acotraz prison.

Disc 4
The weakest of the lot Sudden Impact. This one has Harry on leave. But where he goes murder is sure to follow. Not much of a story line and it lacks the shoot outs that we are used to, but it does deliver that imortal line "go ahead, make my day"

Disc 5
The last installment. The DEad Pool. Not a bad film, with liam Neeson as a film producer who is being framed for the murders that is going on, this also has a small cameo role from jim carrey at the beginning, not a bad film but not great.

All in all im really glad that i got this box set, it really does make my day

Not only does it contain one of the greatest films in cinema history, but all of it's sequels too!

Everybody's heard Clint's famous catchphrases. Go ahead, make my day is really overused that it has become a bit of a farce. Same with Do you feel lucky, punk?
Classic catchphrases that are so well used they've lost their impact.
Watch Dirty Harry today and remember why they became such classic lines. Watching Clint say them again on screen for the first time makes you forget all the overuse. The way Clint delivers them is outstanding, and better than any other pretenders or gags made out of them. Clint really personifies the Dirty Harry character.
Yes, the first film is just as relevent today as ever, still as startling, violent and downright cool. It is even surprisingly funny, laced with a dark humour.

Even if you have expectations going in to see this film for the first time, it will exceed them in every way.

The rest of the films, however, aren't that great. The further along they go the worse they are. Magnum Force is decent, but not classic. The Enforcer is entertaining. Sudden Impact is watchable. But Dead Pool is dire.

For a boxset, the extras are a bit skinny, but worth watching. And another interesting facet of having all the films together is literally seeing Clint age on screen. But let's be honest, he still holds it well, even in his latest Million Dollar Baby.

Clint is a legend. Dirty Harry is a classic. Not owning this DVD would be a crime.

Although The Dead Pool is easily the weakest of the five, that does not mean all the sequels get progressively weaker after the original. Another reviewer has said Clint Eastwood was trapped by the character's one-dimensionality. I think the problem is more the myriad of Dirty Harry clones in films lessen one's expectations of the original and sometimes overlook the subtleties of the scripts. For example, one might think from watching just Dirty Harry that Callaghan is a mysoginist and a loner. But in Magnum Force we see he admires the team work of the vigilante cops (before he finds out they are breaking the law) and in The Enforcer he works quite well with Tyne Daly. There are hints at his past (a dead wife) and desire for a future (romances in Sudden Impact and The Dead Pool). Each film deals with his attitudes to a different aspect of morality, the justice system, and trying to live a life in a world that for him is full of death and horror. He even has a sense of humour (the Shetland pony question in The Enforcer for example). Granted none of the sequels makes the choice Harry has to make about where he takes his stand as well as Dirty Harry, but they do all say something about the man worth hearing.

The documentaries included on the discs show how the writer/director in Clint Eastwood developed along with the series. They are too short to really do this job justice though. Given the huge impact Eastwood has had culturally more effort could have been made. One gets the definite impression the collection was thrown together for the sake of there not already being a Dirty Harry Collection. Its a bit like when Stanley Kubrick died and special editions of 2001 and Full Metal Jacket were put out. There wasn't anything really special about them at all. Given the capacity of DVDs and the wealth of material available, I would like to have seen more included.

If you want the original maverick cop, plays by his own rules, kills the baddies and doesn't care who he offends on the way, Dirty Harry is for you. If you can't find a way to win one, I strongly recommend you buy this collection.