"You've got to ask yourself a question: 'do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya, punk?" Dirty Harry provoked a critical uproar in 1971 for its "******" message about the power of one, as it also elevated Clint Eastwood to superstar status through his most enduring screen persona. Harry Callahan (Eastwood, in a role meant for Frank Sinatra) is a sardonic, hard-working San Francisco cop who can't finish his lunch without having to foil a bank robbery with his 44 Magnum, "the most powerful handgun in the world." When hippie-esque psycho Scorpio (Andy Robinson) goes on a killing spree, Harry and new partner Chico (Reni Santoni) are assigned to hunt him down, but not before the Mayor (John Vernon) and Lt. Bressler (Harry Guardino) admonish Callahan about his heavy-handed tactics. Racing against a deadline to save a kidnap victim from suffocating to death and unbothered by the niceties of Miranda rights and search warrants, Callahan brings in Scorpio, only to see him released on technicalities. "The law's crazy," opines Harry in disgust, before taking it upon himself to ensure that Scorpio doesn't kill again. Directed in violent and efficient fashion by Don Siegel, with a propulsive score by Lalo Schifrin, Dirty Harry was the fourth Siegel-Eastwood collaboration after Coogan's Bluff (1968), Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970), and The Beguiled (1970). Critics at the time strongly objected to the heroic image of a cop's violations of a suspect's Miranda rights, forcing Siegel and Eastwood to deny that they were right-wing reactionaries. All the same, Dirty Harry proved to be highly popular and spawned four sequels: Magnum Force (1973), The Enforcer (1976), Sudden Impact (1983), and The Dead Pool (1988). Lucia Bozzola, Rovi
The second Dirty Harry movie, Magnum Force concerns itself with a vigilante group that has targeted notorious scofflaws for extermination. When a prominent gang boss or drug-runner is set free by the airheaded liberal courts, a covert group of "avengers" is soon on hand to blow the miscreant to bits. While detective Dirty Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) is no great friend of civil liberties, he is dead set against wholesale murder as a solution to legal loopholes. Discovering that all the killings have been committed by the same weapon, Callahan reaches the conclusion that his on-the-edge partner, Charlie McCoy (Mitchell Ryan), is responsible. But the answer is less transparent than that, as Harry learns almost at the cost of his own life. Co-scripted by John Milius and Michael Cimino, Magnum Force was followed by three additional Dirty Harry installments: The Enforcer (1976), Sudden Impact (1983) and The Dead Pool (1988). Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Genre: Suspense & Thriller
- Category Action Thriller, Police Detective Film
- Theme: Lone Wolves, Serial Killers, Police Corruption, Murder Investigations, Rogue Cops
- Rating: R
- Studio: Warner Home Video
- Run Time: 03 hr 43 min
- Language: Spanish, English, French
- Subtitle Language: Spanish, French
- Picture Format: widescreen
- Release Date: February 23, 2010
- Lead Actor: Mitchell Ryan, Hal Holbrook, Harry Guardino, Clint Eastwood, Reni Santoni
- Supporting Actor: Angela Paton, Bob McClurg, Christine White, Scott Hale, Josef Sommer, Kathleen O'Malley, Woodrow Parfrey, Maurice Argent, James Nolan, George Fargo, Clifford A. Pellow, Vince Deadrick Jr., Victor Paul, Tony Giorgio, Suzanne Somers, Ruth Kobart, Richard Lawson, Margaret Avery, John Mitchum, Joe Finnegan, Eddie Garrett, David Gilliam, William Paterson, Richard Devon, Mae Mercer, Kip Niven, Joy Carlin, Jo de Winter, Debra Scott, Christopher Pray, Albert Popwell, Charles Dorsett, Diane Darnell, Ernest Robinson, Jack Kosslyn, Lois Foraker, Melody Thomas, Tim Matheson, Tony Dario, Adele Yoshioka, Craig Kelly, Diana Davidson, Felton Perry, John Vernon, Andy Robinson, David Soul, John Larch, Robert Urich, Lyn Edgington
- Director: Ted Post, Don Siegel