"Dirty Harry" is one of the rare film that breeds a legendary character. Here is a modern film noir with a western treatment, for instance : when icon-actor Clint Eastwood, who plays the bitter, cynical, poker-faced Inspector Harry Callahan, gets rid of the sadistic hippy psycho-maniac, is one of the best showdown in the cinema history. Harry is a hero or anti-hero, whatever : lonely and eternal as in all the mythologies. Harry represents individual conscience and ethics in a world of consuming mass : a new Cassandra and a rebel to unfair and stubborn authority. "Dirty Harry" is first an extention of the previous Don Siegel opus, "Coogan's bluff", and then a pioneer film which renews the genre due to its visual impact. The San Francisco location is superb and the cinematography is taut and smart. The Lalo Schifrin 's oppressive music is perfect and emphasizes the expressionist aspect of the film : the horror. An ambiguous pamphlet against violence and, probably, one of the greatest film ever made in the 1970's, including "Taxi driver". A masterpiece-film that you cannot afford to miss !
Review of Dirty Harry
