Warner
Brothers Home Video | Review by Dan Taylor
The
second flick in the DIRTY HARRY series,
MAGNUM FORCE picks up two years after the
original which ended with Inspector Harry
"Dirty Harry" Callahan blowing
away serial killer Scorpio (Andrew Robinson).
Harry has a new partner (a recurring theme
in the series), a black cop named Early
Smith (Felton Perry), and they've been re-assigned
to stakeout because higher-ups like Lieutenant
Briggs (Hal Holbrook) have grown weary of
criminals screaming brutality every time
Harry dispenses his own brand of justice.
Focusing on the iconic image
associated with Harry – the Magnum
.44 – the flick's credit sequence is
bare bones 70s, almost the antithesis of
the overdone Bond credit sequences. A hand
extends into the screen holding the gun
as the credits appear to the tune of Lalo
Schifrin's jazzy, 70s-cop-show soundtrack.
Seems that a vigilante is
cleaning the San Francisco streets of scum
like Carmine Ricca (Richard Devon), a mob
boss who escapes a murder conviction thanks
to what can only be assumed to be jury tampering
or some other shenanigans. On the way from
his acquittal, Ricca and a car full of mouthpieces
and muscle get aerated by a killer wearing
a traffic cop's uniform.
Is the killer using a cop's
uniform to get up close and personal with
the victims? Or is it a real cop, like Charlie
McCoy (LETHAL WEAPON's Mitch Ryan), an aging
friend of Harry's who seems destined for
the "rubber bullet squad" as Harry
puts it.
Maybe the killer is one of
the fresh-faced rookie cops Harry meets
in the gun range one night. Sweet (Tim Matheson),
Davis (David Soul), Grimes (Robert Urich)
and Astrachan (Kip Niven) co-star as the
new cops on the force, and we soon realize
they're threats to Harry in more ways than
one.
Eventually, Harry gets assigned
back to homicide and begins putting the
pieces together in a case that just might
go higher in the San Fran PD than even Harry
expects.
While DIRTY HARRY presented
Harry as the anti-establishment cop who
plays by his own rules to get the job done,
MAGNUM FORCE turns the tables and makes
Harry part of the same system by pitting
him against killers that are dispensing
their own brand of justice without any regard
to that system -- no matter how flawed it
may be. (Got that?) Placing Harry in the
role of hunted instead of hunter makes for
an interesting twist and establishes FORCE
as one of the best flicks in the series.
There's lots to like in FORCE:
Holbrook is a particularly good foil for
Eastwood, flipping between outright dislike
for Harry's cowboy antics and an almost
grudging respect; Albert Popwell (the bank
robber on the end of the famous "do
you feel lucky punk" speech in DIRTY
HARRY) turns up as a colorful pimp who kills
a hooker (THE COLOR PURPLE's Margaret Avery)
with a can of drain cleaner, but not before
searching for cash in her "titty bank"
and "snatch bank"; Harry foils
an airplane hijacking by posing as an overseas
pilot; the assassination of the mobster
and his kinky, drugged-out sex pals; two
chicks come on to Harry and he drinks both
Schlitz and Olympia from cans, eats greasy
burgers and lives in a shitty, studio apartment,
giving the character a decidedly unglamorous,
everyman persona; there are several violent
gun battles and point-blank murders (thanks
to co-screenwriters John Milius and Michael
Cimino); and, the flick's trademark line
– "Man's gotta know his limitations"
– is a keeper, and easier to remember
than the whole damn .44 Magnum speech.
On the flip side, MAGNUM FORCE
has some problems – the flick's too
long, has several scenes that could've been
trimmed without being missed (the grocery
store shootout for instance) and is too
leisurely paced in a tv-cop-show kinda way
(some of the same complaints can be leveled
at the original, too). It's no DIRTY HARRY,
but few sequels can hold a candle to the
original, and FORCE comes closer than many.
