'Dirty Harry' is probably the film that most encapsulates and established the 'Clint Eastwood persona'. The first of a franchise that would grow to five pictures, it would inspire many copy cats and parodies. The video essayist Maggie Mae Fish did a piece were she contrasts Eastwood's early, mostly promotional statements about the film, in which he viewed it as wish fullfiment fantasy bordering on satire, to later in life, in which he seemingly views it a guide to living, it has in effect become his personality.
I'll leave it to Fish to further expand on that point and focus on what I thought of the picture. I liked it. It's legit good. I should have but hadn't been expecting the final act, the bad guy sniper 'The Scorpio Killer' gets off on a technicality, and he and our dirty Harry Inspector Callahan have a final confrontation, a confrontation that doesn't make a whole lot of logistical sense, but is satisfying.
What really makes the film work is that Scorpio is such a good villian, and that hero and bad guy are so well matched, near 'Die Hard'levels. The bad guy is billed as Andy Robinson and I was wowed to realize that is Andrew Robinson, who played Elim Garak on Deep Space Nine; this realization adds a whole new level to that character for me.
This is a film I should revisit, there is a far bit in there to unpack and mull over. The past is prologe political subtext of it all could be a long essay. I mean of course it's set in San Fransico. ***
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