Dirty Harry
[4K/digital download]
Honest question: are Clint Eastwood’s cop movies better than his westerns? It might seem so. I haven’t seen his spaghetti stuff (yet!), but Pale Rider and Outlaw Josey Wales are pretty respected and didn’t do much for me. Maybe Pale Rider was good. Unforgiven is great, of course. But Dirty Harry is just cool, man. I don’t know if it’s because Eastwood brings that cowboy swagger to the role, but there’s something about Dirty Harry’s whole attitude that’s much more fun to watch. I clearly need to do some more homework on the man.
But anyway, Dirty Harry is just seedy and filthy all the way through: from the look, to the plot, to the characters. It also sets up the very clumsy argument for why vigilantes are needed in our world. It’s basically arguing that some bad guys are bad because they’re bad and the only reason they succeed is because our society lets them. It’s the movie version of “the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” And this bad guy (Grima Wormtongue!) certainly is THAT. Like Alfred Pennyworth said, some men just want to watch the world burn, but this guy clearly has no backstory motivating him. He just wants to hurt people. I’m sure some people like that exist, but unless Dirty Harry has a radar for those kinds of things, some hard evidence would be nice. But this radar Dirty Harry has, and when we the audience see it, it makes him stepping outside of the law with a big fucking gun to go get this guy that much more fun to watch. I guess Dirty Harry is a big dumb fun movie in that respect. It’s fun and sleazy and has that line he’s so famous for. A guy like Callahan would clearly be a nightmare of a person in any kind of social setting so he might as well do what he does best. I guess maybe it’s just a modern western, in many ways with bigger guns substituting for the littler ones.
My dabbling with Clint Eastwood is over for now as I explore the Sean Connery’s 007 movies. But I intend to go back to him to clear the air on whether or not I like him. I hope there are more movies like this one to keep me entertained.
