Dirty Harry - 1971 - 4 Stars, 1½ Stars

I gave this film two ratings because Dirty Harry is actually two movies - one is a really cool crime drama about a cop who doesn't always play by the rules, the other is a really awful crime drama about a cop who doesn't always play by the rules. I felt it was unfair to combine the two.

Let's talk about the one I liked first, because it doesn't have any spoilers. Two things I loved about the way the good Dirty Harry was made - the use of light and dark in scenes. Sometimes it's so dark we don't quite know what we're looking at, but it's the good kind of obscurity - it's realistic. This flows into point number two: Dirty Harry does not often resort to typical film chicanery in many of its action scenes. Many action scenes create tension by pitting two forces against one another and have us constantly checking in on both those forces - the classic example is that horror film moment where people are led to scream 'Don't open that door!' at the screen because they know the murderer is behind it. In these cases, we are presented with a (literally) unrealistic view by basically being two places at once; it squarely makes us an observer of the action - we wish we could tell the characters what to do. Dirty Harry mostly puts us in the eyes (or close enough) of our protagonist, which creates tension because his uncertainty is our uncertainty - we think about what we would do, rather than what other people should do. I generally like this way better.

Note: Major Spoilers Ahead

The second movie, however, is terrible; it made me angry and bored at the same time, and I hope to do the same to you with this writeup. I do not understand what this film is trying to accomplish. If you haven't seen the movie in a while, the killer is set free on a technicality because basically Dirty Harry totally didn't follow procedure at all. He also tortured the killer so that he would release information; a torture which the film does not show us, which to me is unforgivable. If the film is going to traffic in this kind of morality where torture is acceptable, it cannot then fail to show us the brutal torture that no doubt happened. So the killer gets free, but Harry shadows him on his free time. The killer notices this, so he hires someone to beat him mercilessly (which the film does show us). He then claims Harry delivered this beating, a plot point which the film totally disregards after it happens. He strikes again, Harry is called to the mayor's office, which mayor is completely set on giving the killer exactly what he wants because he Needs To Get Re-Elected - at which point Harry is asked to be the bagman for yet another handoff to the killer (the first one failed, remember). This point is totally absurd given that Harry has already been reprimanded for tailing the killer on his off-time as well as failing to make the first handoff, but the situation does provide the necessary deus ex machina for the very cathartic ending whereby Harry finds out the killer's location so he can kill him.

My mind is now saying, 'But it's just a movie, that's just a plot point'. Maybe so. I'm not really upset at all the attacks on the Rule of Law - lord knows the film world does not need another Courtroom Scene (which scenes I generally find awful - the only thing worse than fetishizing vigilante justice is fetishizing its opposite), and this film delightfully stays out of that quagmire. The reason why it feels monstrous is because we know the ending - we know Dirty Harry is going to beat the living shit out of this guy. But first some kids have to get slapped and bus drivers beaten and lives endangered - the violence and mayhem becomes pornographic at that point, which is of course hugely ironic because Harry's whole raison d'etre seems to be fighting against those who feel that violence is fun by engaging in violence (which he may or may not find fun, but which we as an audience should). Violence IS fun - don't go ruining it with morality.

So yeah - if I had turned this movie off around 70 minutes in, I would've been pretty happy with it.