esrosedotblog

DIRTY

Improbability layered upon improbability threatens suspension of disbelief for the entire run of Dirty Harry but somehow it is still a great movie! Why is that?

Can it be that Clint Eastwood has that 'thing'? If so, it can transform another Don Siegel grinder into a NY Times Best 1176 Film. It sure held me and I do not like the violence or the fact that the plot doesn't make a lot of sense. There are many loose ends.

This is an early Eastwood film; he has just turned 40. We have seen him in Rawhide and the spaghetti westerns and we cannot quit looking at him.

Here, he continues his anti-hero as super-hero thing as a bad cop who is good. There is a psycho serial killer on the loose who is devious and clever and refuses to be caught. Can you imagine? The SFO police and political bureaucracy unaccountably believes in civil rights and thwarts Harry's best efforts to kick some serial killer ass.

Disgusted, Clint goes commando and does the vigilante thing. Then he throws his fucking badge away, the bastards. And so on.

I will give this a 3 out of Netflix5 because I don't want the algorithm to recommend any other films in this genré.

Interestingly, this is the year that Eastwood directed his own picture
Play Misty For Me which is also a Best Film. There is a scene in Harry where the title is on a theater marquee in the background. Nice. Misty is scary as hell; a female fan stalks a disc jockey. It still gives me the willies to think about it. I will have to watch it again when we get to the 'p's; sometime in 2008 probably. I am bracing myself.