Dirty Harry (DVD 2002)

Tell me about Thomas Aquinus. It won't make the slightest difference to me Doug, but the consequences to you will be devastating. In your mind I'll be dead, and with no one to guide you out, you'll be stuck in permanent psychosis. The walls of reality will come crashing down. One minute, you're the savior of the Rebel cause, next thing you know you'll be Cohaagen's bosom buddy. You'll even have fantasies about alien civilizations as you requested, but in the end, back on Earth you'll be lobotomized! So get a grip on yourself Doug, and put down that gun!

A sniper is holding the city of San Francisco to ransom. Unless the mayor pays ups he will go on killing people. So far the rooftop killer known as Scorpio has managed to kill a girl while swimming. What could throw a cog into the works is having Detective Harry Callahan on the case.

Callahan has a certain way of dealing with criminals. He also has his own views of how they should be treated. With a smart remark and his .44 Magnum by his side, Dirty Harry goes after the killer, thinking that the Mayor is mad for paying up. But a couple of slip-ups and the law looks like its on Scorpio’s side, leaving Harry even more bitter than he is.

What can you say about such a classic movie that hasn’t been said already. When it was first released in 1971, it caused a mass of controversy due to its right-wing views, that criminals are better treated than the innocent. Having the lead character acting as if he is just as bad as the crooks he’s after. Politicians and critics screamed out about the way it depicts the police department, making them look like violent thugs.

But what they didn’t expect or understand is that by making such a noise, they created a phenomenon. Dirty Harry will always appear in movie reference books as a classic thriller, that doesn’t stop from start to finish. Clint Eastwood, coming off the back of Play Misty For Me and The Beguiled, returns to the Western (of sorts) with his performance of the lone sheriff in a land full of rules and regulations. (Even the end shot of Callahan throwing his shield away is a homage of High Noon). He has such a charismatic charm that you tend to forget that his is, in fact, a brutal man who will even torture to get answers. Andrew Robinson is first-rate as the killer Scorpio (based on the famous Zodiac Killer). He comes across as an evil, killing machine who finds that he has an even worse killing machine after him.

Don Seigel directs Eastwood (for the fourth time) with the flair or a true master, being able to create a first-rate thriller and using the city of San Francisco as a perfect background. But would it have been the same movie if Seigel and Eastwood weren’t aboard?

Originally it was a vehicle for Frank Sinatra and Empire Strikes Back director Irvin Kershner. But when Sinatra injured his hand, he pulled out. John Wayne, Paul Newman, Steve McQueen and Jack Nicholson were all offered the part, in a film entitled Dead Right, till Eastwood and Seigel came on board.

Scorpio was going to be played by Audie Murphy, the star of To Hell And Back, but he died in a plane crash before he could sign, Andrew Robinson, a pacifist, could play the gun-totting killer.

Eastwood, never one for letting an opportunity go, not only did his own stunts, including jumping onto the moving school bus from a bridge, but took over direction when Don Seigel was taken ill (he directed the jumper scene and the part when Harry meets the homosexual in the park).

Eastwood went onto make four more Dirty Harry movies, but as is always the way, the original is still the best, and although it was made in 1971, it still carries a mighty punch that many cop thrillers would love to have.

This is the second best of the Dirty Harry films , Magnum Force being the best of the five in my book.I suggest everybody should own a copy of Dirty Harry as it is an investment for the future, it is a fantastic film and Andrew Robinson is a classic actor as the villian Scorpio TOP STUFF **i want a lawyer**

i liked the fact it was new and sealed.there is nothing i dislike about this product.and i decided to buy this dvd as a xmas present.