The longest Dirty Harry movie, clocking in at 124 minutes, Magnum Force actually gives us a plot with multiple threads to follow, and is, as a result, a much better movie than the original. This time around Harry must solve a series of brutal vigilante murders, gradually narrowing it down to a group of corrupt cops. He does actual detective work this time and uses his cunning to track the bad guys. The trick with deliberately missing his mark at the shooting range to retrieve the incriminating bullet was a smart move. There was nothing like this in the, frankly overrated, first movie.The violence, even by today's standards, is graphic and upsetting. Seeing corpses writhe in agony after getting shot directly in the forehead, is hard to watch. Imagine suffering such a would and, knowing you were dying, lost control of your limbs. You don't see this in movies anymore. Gun violence is often overplayed and made to look cool while the grim reality of being murdered in this horrible way is rarely seen. I appreciate the movie for having the moxie to show us a more realistic depiction.Director Ted Post, who directed Eastwood in Hang 'Em High, uses the anamorphic Panavision framing very well and there are multiple awesome compositions in the film. The slow, laid-back pace of Don Siegel is gone and the movie feels broader in scope while at the same time being an ironic response to the negative critical backlash that the first received. There's more weight and wit in Magnum Force, there's more to talk about, giving it higher re-watch value.I know my opinion is controversial, but Magnum Force is simply more enjoyable and prompts deeper debate.

This begins really well with excellent credits, introducing us uncompromisingly to the weapon of the title, some vigorous, if seemingly over zealous traffic patrol cop action, an amazing telescopic rifle execution of a whole bunch of crime boys and their half naked molls, some wise-cracks and even an aircraft highjack. But Ted Post is no Don Seigel and things soon slow down as the rather tiresome battle of words between Eastwood and his boss replace battle on the streets. Action does reassert itself and interest is just about maintained throughout but the film is far too long. I actually like the 70s slips from full on action to mundane ordinariness from time to time with the sun catching the lens and things happen without direct relevance to the story, but this gets too sloppy at times and it seems a long slog to a disappointing finale, or two.

Magnum Force (1973)Plot In A Paragraph: Dirty Harry is on the trail of vigilante cops who are not above going beyond the law to kill the city's undesirables.How do you follow up one of the best movies of the 70's?? By making a solid sequel like this is the answer!! Magnum Force is not only a worthy sequel, it's a really good movie in general. Hal Holbrook is an actor I've always liked seeing and David Soul is fine too, but this is Clint's movie and he dominates every scene from start to finish. Magnum Force was Clint's biggest hit at this point as it grossed $39 million at the domestic box office to become the 6th highest grossing movie of 1973.

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."