Dirty Harry

To look at "Dirty Harry" today is like looking at a time capsule, it evokes a simpler past in movies, where things such as consequences for your actions weren't examined as much as they are now. Clint Eastwood's Harry Calaghan is an iconic character where he comes in to get the job done. Harry lives in a world where police and politicians cower under bureaucracy and red tape. They are too by the book, they fall under submission to a sick serial killer, while Harry is the only one who stands for the victims of his heinous crimes.

"Dirty Harry" isn't the kind of crime film to deconstruct, or analyze too in depth, it has an agenda and isn't subtle about it, sometimes a man like Harry Calaghan is necessary. This is a revenge film, about a vigilante cop who listens only to his own code and conscience, to hell with the red tape, if it takes a .44 magnum to get a creep off the streets, he's going to do it.

The plot of "Dirty Harry" is ripped right off the headlines, inspired by the Zodiac killer of the time. In the film the killer calls himself Scorpio, he's a sniper who in the beginning of the film shoots a woman swimming in her pool from a rooftop. He sends a threatening letter to the mayor of San Francisco asking for a sum of $20,000 or he will kill again. Harry is assigned to the case, he's tough no-nonsense, he disagrees when The Mayor decides to play Scorpio's game and collects him money. It's not long before Harry goes after the killer his own way, knowing full well the only way to get this guy is to get him off the streets, permanently.

When first released, "Dirty Harry" came under some fire politically, it looked to promote vigilantism and anarchy in the police force. You could say it does that, but that is also why Harry is such a compelling and charismatic character. To me he resembles much of John Wayne's character Ethan Edwards in "The Searchers", both men are loners who don't seem compatible with the world around them, both are driven by revenge out of a loved one they have lost, and both represent a certain bleak aspect of the tough guy male. "The Searcher" is far more complex and I would say hopeful in showing that such a character can find some redemption and peace in the end, while "Dirty Harry" finishes with its character with even more contempt and bitterness than he had at the beginning. In a reference to the western "High Noon", Harry chucks his police badge into the river and walks off screen, is blunt.

Since "Dirty Harry" came out, a new special brand of action hero was born, and was done to death pretty much in the 80s. Action stars like the Stallone's Schwartchengger's, and the Willis' created indestructible action heroes who's sole purpose seemed to be running down a bunch of bad guys and leaving leaving a slew of dead bodies in their wake. In the inevitable sequels, Harry Calaghan couldn't help but become somewhat of an aged dinosaur, and like all characters who refuse to change, the world did grow up around him.

Clint Eastwood must've known this when he made "Gran Torino" a couple of years ago, which many considered to be an elegy to his "Dirty Harry" character. In it Eastwood plays an aging man of action of sorts who protects a family from gang violence. Eastwood let his character end on a note of sensitivity and integrity, he was the man who played Harry Calaghan and he was a filmmaker who understood the complexity behind that kind of man better than anyone else.

"Dirty Harry" remains an interesting film, it's not only a top notch crime drama, but an interesting character study. Despite what you think of Harry's actions, he remains a pivotal archetype in film, there will always be a need for him, and sometimes that could be a good thing.