The film might easily have passed for a popular tale of cops and robbers or, more particularly, cop and psychopath had it not been for the ruthlessness of Harry's methods...
In this character, Eastwood is the archetypal cop of the 1970s... He is unsociable, insensitive, silent without apparent reason, incapable equally of thought or of any human feeling, solving all problems with a blast from a revolver so heavy that it takes two hands to aim it... In fact, the reason why Clint Eastwood behaves so ruthlessly in "Dirty Harry" is carefully plotted at one point in the film: his wife was killed by a hit-and-run driver escaping from the scene of a crime, so he hates all baddies
'Dirty Harry' supplanted suspense by action, tension by brutality, character by a bigger and better bullet...
Eastwood is a plain-clothes policeman who puts his faith in his Colt Magnum.44 and his ability to use it... He is ready to shoot down a criminal as arrest him... Eastwood brought the rude justice of the lawless West to the regular laws of the modern city... Perhaps his behavior would have been less controversial if he had merely been a renegade cop who broke the rules when roused by anger, but in the cool neon light of his superior's office, he is evidently unrepentant about his behavior...
Eastwood had played 'Dirty Harry' five times in the sequels 'Magnum Force', 'The Enforcer', 'Sudden Impact' and 'The Dead Pool.' Callahan is always in a situation where he has to be his own judge and jury... Harry always gets somebody who's very lethal... In the case of "Dirty Harry", it was a psychopathic killer... Callahan wants to get him off the streets so that nobody else becomes a victim... He is a man on the side of the public... He feels that the law is wrong and he should fight that or try to solve it... Harry is not a man who stands for violence... He is a man who can't understand society tolerating violence...
Eastwood is reassuringly indestructible and in real situations he adopts the fantasy mastery of a traditional Western loner... He may be beaten up, but never beaten by the criminals or by authority...
In this character, Eastwood is the archetypal cop of the 1970s... He is unsociable, insensitive, silent without apparent reason, incapable equally of thought or of any human feeling, solving all problems with a blast from a revolver so heavy that it takes two hands to aim it... In fact, the reason why Clint Eastwood behaves so ruthlessly in "Dirty Harry" is carefully plotted at one point in the film: his wife was killed by a hit-and-run driver escaping from the scene of a crime, so he hates all baddies
'Dirty Harry' supplanted suspense by action, tension by brutality, character by a bigger and better bullet...
Eastwood is a plain-clothes policeman who puts his faith in his Colt Magnum.44 and his ability to use it... He is ready to shoot down a criminal as arrest him... Eastwood brought the rude justice of the lawless West to the regular laws of the modern city... Perhaps his behavior would have been less controversial if he had merely been a renegade cop who broke the rules when roused by anger, but in the cool neon light of his superior's office, he is evidently unrepentant about his behavior...
Eastwood had played 'Dirty Harry' five times in the sequels 'Magnum Force', 'The Enforcer', 'Sudden Impact' and 'The Dead Pool.' Callahan is always in a situation where he has to be his own judge and jury... Harry always gets somebody who's very lethal... In the case of "Dirty Harry", it was a psychopathic killer... Callahan wants to get him off the streets so that nobody else becomes a victim... He is a man on the side of the public... He feels that the law is wrong and he should fight that or try to solve it... Harry is not a man who stands for violence... He is a man who can't understand society tolerating violence...
Eastwood is reassuringly indestructible and in real situations he adopts the fantasy mastery of a traditional Western loner... He may be beaten up, but never beaten by the criminals or by authority...