The ending of the first Dirty Harry (an excellent film) saw Clint Eastwood's Inspector Harry Callahan kill the disgusting and too-evil-to-live Scorpio and in turn, throw his badge away, signifying that he will never come back to the San Francisco police force and go on killing bad guys as a vigilante. Surely this would mean that there won't be any sequels...right? Wrong. Harry is back on the force and continuing his police work despite disobeying the orders of his superiors in Magnum Force, directed by Ted Post (Hang 'Em High, also with Eastwood; Beneath the Planet of the Apes), and sees him (temporarily) re-assigned to Stakeout instead of Homicide. Here, he is investigating the murders of many of the city's most notorious criminals, including narcotics kingpins and pimps (one of whom murders a prostitute with drain cleaner in one of the film's more graphic scenes). During the film, he meets a group of young rookie cops, including a fresh-faced Tim Matheson (Eric Stratton from Animal House (1978)) who admire Harry very deeply (not in a sexual way, mind you). As the film presses on, Harry believes that they are the ones doing the killings, and he is forced to confront his own ideas about violating the rights of the criminals when they are taken to the extreme.What I want to get out of the way is that the major problem I have with this film is that no matter how many Dirty Harry sequels you make, I can't get over the fact that Harry threw away his badge at the end of the first film after killing Scorpio. Did he decide to come back after a short while? And shouldn't his superiors have been more critical of him for disobeying his orders (like firing him or prosecuting him)? Regardless, neither the Scorpio killing nor Harry throwing his badge away is mentioned in the whole film. Another issue is that during the film, Harry develops a casual romance with a young woman named Sunny, who seems to have the hots for him right away. It's cute, I will admit, but like with Harry's romance with Sam in The Dead Pool (1988), it's glossed over quickly.After the problems I highlighted, the rest is pretty damn great. The film keeps up the action and graphic violence of its predecessor, especially during two great scenes in a store robbery stakeout and a shootout with a gang of criminals at a food plant. The score by Lalo Schifrin is also catchy, with the opening theme being the standout. It's pure 70s style tunes. And even though Harry's relationship with Sunny is glossed over, the film also shows Harry's (not romantic) relationship with the wife of his friend, Charlie (Mitchell Ryan from High Plains Drifter and Lethal Weapon), who holds the safe beliefs as Harry, but is a bit more unhinged about the situation, best described when his wife mentioned an occasion when he played Russian Roulette with himself. The scenes between Harry and Charlie's wife feel appropriately calm and gives audiences a chance to see Harry as a human being more than his scenes with Sunny. Hal Holbrook makes a great turn as Lt. Briggs, and Eastwood himself makes Harry a tough, but understandable and human guy the second time around. It's also interesting to see Harry delve into more police work than he did in the first film, especially when he's using Ballistics to match up the bullets found at the murder scenes to the weapon used, and then the killers.Now I want to discuss the best thing about this film: the themes of taking vigilantism too far, and whether following the system is the right decision. The first film was about how maybe democracy needs to be put aside in order for the police to properly catch criminals, and that maybe the criminals are given too much leeway by the law. Part of the reason this film was created was to answer to the negative criticism towards the first film about Harry maybe being "fascist." However, it doesn't just feel like a simple throwaway piece that the film just inserts. It feels like the film really wants you to think about how it would be to live in a society with squads of killer cops and whether their current democratic system is really a good system to live under.Harry says at one point that he hates the system but will stick with it until something better comes along because he has no choice. We can all get the sense that there are quite a few people in real-life living in this country that hate the system as well, but unless they want to go something so extreme they'll get jailed or worse, they don't have a choice either. When it comes to vigilantism, the film looks at and then makes you think further about how far it could go before it goes too far. Harry discusses how it would be excessive to kill somebody because their dog takes a dump on their neighbor's lawn.Even that's not the worst of it; there's also the possibility of someone killing somebody simply because that person doesn't like the way the other looks at him. Even the killer cops fit so well into the message: more people today are nervous of cops because of police brutality; how safe would they feel if there was a whole squad of them just going out and shooting bad guys dead, point blank? In short, watch this sequel. Like the first film, it does its utmost to make you think about our legal system and whether criminals should be given much leeway by it. It's action-packed to the max and it is a solid sequel that can be a great companion piece to the original Dirty Harry. "It's all in a day's work for Inspector Harry Callahan."

This is a more than competent follow up to Dirty Harry, where a group of rookie cops are taking out gangsters, pimps and other low lives in San Francisco. However, when Dirty Harry refuses to join them, they turn on him, planting a bomb in his mailbox and killing his partner. Also it seems they have an intrinsic dislike of the permissive society and take out a group of people at a pool party and have an ally in Harry's boss, Lt Briggs, played by Hal Holbrook, who captures Harry at gunpoint when he finds out he's not supporting the young vigilantes. In Harry's eyes, for all the system is rotten, vigilante law is not the answer and he has to uphold the law, where you'd expect him to support the police death squad.Magnum Force is good in other respects, the brutal shooting of a gangster who is acquitted for murder by one of the renegade cops is unexpected, the chase scene at the end where Harry dispenses of the vigilante cops on a disused aircraft carrier( including karate chopping one of them to death) is first rate, and Harry also stops an aircraft hijack. As ever, Lalo Schifrin provides a first class soundtrack and look out for David Soul in his first starring role as one of the renegade cops.Again there are some memorable quotes, most notably one where Harry's Japanese American neighbour asks him what she has to do to get into bed with him, " just knock at the door", is his quick response in one of the quickest seductions ever. Also as the film ends and Harry's boss is blown up by a car bomb planted by Harry, he states, " man's gotta know his limitations". Overall 9/10 in what is an excellent sequel to Dirty Harry.

The second "Dirty Harry" film, directed by Ted Post (a friend of star Clint Eastwood's from their days in television), is full of smash-ups, crash-ups, a pimp killing a prostitute with drain cleaner down her throat, a metal girder catching a crime czar right in the face, and a police inspector (Eastwood's partner) dispatched in a shameful manner--by opening a bobby-trapped mailbox! The plot is inverted from 1971's "Dirty Harry"--this time, the kids are all right and the cops are the bad guys. No matter; Eastwood's Harry Callahan dispatches with the legalities and mows down the crooked rookies just as he did with the hippie sniper from the predecessor. The screenwriters (John Milius and Michael Cimino!) don't even attempt to recognize the irony inherent in the scenario--it's just a plot gimmick to them, another way to go with this character. Still, for fans of completely mindless action fare, one could do worse than "Magnum Force". It has built-in audience approval, which is impossible to shake; one goes into the movie knowing exactly what to expect--and enjoying that all expectations are fully met. Post keeps it moving--thumping, thumping--like an erotic dance for would-be assassins. ** from ****

Unless you're Oliver Queen or the brooding anti-hero star of a comic book serial, don't expect the idea of Taking the Law Into Your Own Hands to work out after months of trying. Cops can get awfully irritable, and messing with the heat isn't a game worth playing — especially when you've got Inspector Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) hot on your trail. He's got a .44 Magnum Revolver, and he isn't afraid to play a tricky game of Russian Roulette with you if you don't quit it.The villain of this "Dirty Harry" sequel is not a deranged sniper but a vigilante posing as a traffic cop. He doesn't figure himself to be crazy; he finds his actions to be methodical. His favorite hobby involves hunting down the thugs who escape jail time and offing them — since the law can't manage to lock them up (the first few minutes of the film witness outrage following the release of a murderer, based on a technicality), why not do the dirty work and rid the city of the vermin that corrupts it? The foe figures he's doing San Francisco a favor, but Harry can see through the bullshit — the guy's a madman looking for an excuse to justify his madness; who knows how long it'll be before he starts shooting jaywalkers? So he and his partner (Felton Perry) try to strip away all the false leads and find out what the real deal is, as their Lieutenant (Hal Holbrook) remains skeptical of Harry's unconventional ways.Some find the "Dirty Harry" movies to be too questionable in their ethics to really enjoy, but I find their thunderous grittiness to be gigantically entertaining. Clint Eastwood is the ultimate anti-hero, his perpetual machismo convincingly charged. He's a man bred to seek justice, too old and worn to consider the confines of the rules. Harry is ruthless, stoic, street smart — Eastwood is so mesmerizing in the role because he doesn't have to emote. His lined face and subtle emotional scars speak louder than the limited stretches of dialogue he has to deliver."Magnum Force" is a such an excellent sequel because it builds on what made "Dirty Harry" made so great; we hardly need character development here, considering all we need to know is that Harry Callahan is a cop you don't want to mess with. The thrills are leaner and meaner, the screenplay without filler, the characterizations fiendishly simple — even the villain menaces more than the previous scoundrel, as his identity is kept secret until the unpredictable truth is let out. Things might not be as rugged as they were before — Ted Post, replacing Don Siegel, prefers an adventuresome tone in comparison to the first's sinister bloodlust — but "Magnum Force" is an appealing sequel that delivers the turbo-charged thrills one wants, one expects. But its quality — that's what makes it strong enough to work on its own.