Magnum Force

The original Dirty Harry (1971) is a straightforward right-wing fantasy: super-cop Harry Callahan gives the criminal-coddling Liberal Establishment the finger while tracking down a ruthless serial killer. Its first sequel, Magnum Force (1973), provides a bizarre, garbled counter-point. In this film, the tables are turned, with vigilante cops the bad guys and Harry upholding "the System." Huh? It's well that the film is so entertaining, or the viewer would find it laughably hypocritical.

San Francisco is shaken by a series of murders: crooked union bosses, organized crime figures and minor thugs are murdered by men in police uniform. Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) is soon on the case. His testy boss, Lt. Briggs (Hal Holbrook), suspects a crime boss (Tony Gorgio), but Callahan finds the evidence points towards disgruntled cop Charlie McCoy (Mitch Ryan). However, McCoy is killed during one of the killers' raids, and Callahn takes aim at a quartet of sharpshooting rookie cops who think themselves above the law.

Dirty Harry played perfectly into the conservative backlash against '60s political activism, crime and chaos. Magnum Force apparently rebukes its predecessor: the villainous vigilante cops are portrayed as Gestapo-type murderers that take law and order to an extreme, summarily executing everyone from abusive pimps to mob bosses. That's all well and good, but aren't we rooting for Harry to do the same? Isn't that the whole point of why he's awesome? Apparently not: Harry mouths some wholly unconvincing platitudes about "the System" working, shocking sentiments from writers John Milius ("Why spoil the beauty of the thing with legality?") and Michael Cimino (The Deer Hunter). Of course, Harry utlimately reverts to wasting bad guys without due process, and we wonder what the hell we're supposed to take away from this mess. I guess the message is, vigilantism is only okay when Harry does it. Fair enough, I don't feel like arguing.

Fortunately, Magnum Force works fine as pure entertainment. The plot jerks around a bit but it maintains a smooth, crisp pace through its 125-minutes. Director Ted Post (Hang 'Em High) takes what worked in the original and kicks it up a few notches. The violence isn't as grisly as the original but Post compensates with lots of action, including a lengthy shootout with the Mob and a gripping, brilliantly-structured climactic set-piece. Writers Milius and Cimino, as expected, provide some meaty dialogue: "Shooting... that's how people get shot!" being my favorite one-liner. Lalo Schiffrin's score is even better than his work on the original Dirty Harry. Everything the casual viewer liked about the first film is back in abundance and things like message don't really matter.

Clint Eastwood reprises his signature role with little difficulty. If anything, Harry's an even bigger badass than before, breaking up an airplane hijacking *and* convenience-store hold-up, fending off women with a stick and even doing some real detective work. Hal Holbrook (Into the Wild) makes a perfect slimy villain, with David Soul (TV's Starsky and Hutch), Kip Niven, Robert Urich and Tim Matheson (Animal House) as his ruthless henchmen. Felton Perry (Walking Tall) takes a turn as Harry's latest ill-fated partner and Mitch Ryan (High Plains Drifter) provides some pathos. Series regular Albert Popwell inevitably turns up, here playing a nasty pimp.

Magnum Force is lots of fun, and the only thing that separates it from the first Dirty Harry is coherence. It's easy to overlook the film's schizophrenic, self-devouring "morality" for sake of its great action scenes and cool Clint Eastwood. And really, what's coherence next to that?