Dirty Harry Week: Magnum Force

Welcome back to Day 2 of Dirty Harry Week.  Today is one of my personal favorites out of the batch.  Homicides are piling up in the old town of San Francisco, which is nothing new but this time around the victims may all have something in common and it is up to Harry to figure out what is going on and how to stop it.  This is Magnum Force.

Scram Mormons!!!

Harry Callahan:  The rest of you could shoot like them, I wouldn't care if the whole damn department was spoiler.



Mobster Ricca gets acquitted due to a technicality in the case and is off on the road when a traffic cop pulls him over.  No sooner is he done looking at the driver's ID he comes back and wastes all three men in the car at point blank range.

Inspector Callahan and his partner Early Smith (Felton Perry of The Towering Inferno, Sudden Death, Down and Out in Beverly Hills, Robocop and Robocop 2) have been lifted from Homicide to a stake out duty on a kingpin when their Lieutenant, Neil Briggs (Hal Holbrook of All the President's Men, Lincoln, Midway, The Fog and The Bachelor) has Ricca and crew's homicides looked into and Harry is just the man to stick the job with.   Early and Harry look over the Lincoln and get the ballistics and corner reports while an house party of a known scumbag gets gunned down, guests and all.

Doing anything tonight, bright eyes?

As Callahan and Smith pursue the case, a known pimp is also smoked like turkey at close range but Harry notices the pimp's cash is available like a bribe to a traffic cop.  Later that day Callahan meets four rookie traffic cops with impeccable aim at the gun range.  Turns out all four men are former Airborne Rangers and chose to carry the good fight on in civvie life via police.

I had just a few comments to make about this film.  This is the second of the Dirty Harry series as was directed by Ted Post (Gunsmoke, Rawhide, Hang 'Em High, Peyton Place and Beneath the Planet of the Apes).  Our four rookies are played by David Soul (Here Come the Brides, Starsky and Hutch, Salem's Lot and Tides of War) Tim Matheson (Animal House, 1941, Fletch, Cannonball Fever, Trial & Error and Burn Notice) Kip Niven (Earthquake, Damnation Alley, New Year's Evil and The Painting), who I didn't immediately recognize and lastly but certainly not least Robert Urich (SWAT, Vegas, Spencer: For Hire and Night of the Wolf).

 With a fast pace, disturbing content and a bit of nudity this hard hitting action film pushed boundaries and make us root for Harry yet again.

JUST PAY THE PARKING FINE!!!!