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Rating:  -
John Millius congratulates himself throughout the docs and commentary on this picture for offering up a sequel that turns the premise of the first film on its head. Harry the maverick who goes outside the system now faces off against jack-booted vigilante cops. He's right that this is a cool idea, but the character of Harry here has been so changed from the first film that there's not much impact. In Dirty Harry he's a misanthropic loner with more in common with the killer he's stalking than the society he's trying to protect. Here he's a conventional good-guy -- heroic and smooth with the ladies. The bilious self-loathing that contorted Clint's face is gone. (In that picture Harry may speak for the victims but he's always at a remove from them. He watches the dead girl pulled from her torture cell. He offers no compassion for the mother of a victim at the scene of her son's murder and doesn't offer so much as a "It's okay, kids -- sit tight." to the busload of students at the end. He's all about the hunt.)
Also the construction of the story here allows for no suspense because we know who did it right away. There are drawn-out scenes of the crimes and various stakeouts that provide long Clint-less stretches. The airplane scene in the beginning is preposterous and contrived and the climactic chase is fairly tedious. I actually could have done with move David Soul and his band on bikes than Hal Holbrook -- love him though I may. (And note how much Mitchell Ryan looks like Keith Olberman here.)
Rating:  -
The weak point of this film was the director, Ted Post. The writing was superb and remains one of my favorite story lines for a Dirty Harry film, but Post gave the film an almost cartoonish feel to an otherwise gripping and quite horrifying story. A group of young rookie cops decide to take matters of law enforcement and judgement in their own hands to the point of becoming enforcer, judge, and executioner all rolled-up into acts of vigilante murder. It's a great film if you can see past director Ted Posts shoddy treatment/telling of such a great story.
Rating:  -
Clint Eastwood still at his iconic best and some great talents involved front and behind camera. Much closer to the classic first film than the diminishing returns of the rest of the series when Harry disappointingly changed from almost super hero to just another cop. Other fans may not agree but for this reviewer the first two movies are the cream of the crop!!
Rating: -
Magnum Force is the first sequel to the classic Dirty Harry, and it suffers some from the let-downs typical of sequels, but it's still Clint Eastwood being a tough guy, which is enough to carry the merely average plot and script and make it good entertainment for Eastwood fans.
In this installment, Harry Callahan, the cop frustrated by the rules that hold him back, shows he has his limits when he goes up against wicked vigilante cops killing criminals without any due process. As in the first movie, there's plenty of action, a car chase, suspense, people getting shot, etc.
Whether those with the older DVD will want to upgrade is a matter of personal preference, but the special features look attractive to me:
-- new commentary by director and Magnum Force screenwriter John Milius ("in this gritty, entertaining commentary, legendary Hollywood screenwriter Milius discusses Eastwood, the world of Dirty Harry and the rugged resilience of crime drama in American cinema")
-- new featurette "A Moral Right: The Politics of Dirty Harry," with filmmakers, social scientists and authors on the politics and ethics of the Dirty Harry films
-- "The Hero Cop: Yesterday and Today"
-- trailer gallery
This and the other four movies are available on standard DVD both separately and in a 7-disc Ultimate Collector's Edition, which has additional goodies.
They're also on Blu-ray in a 5-disc Ultimate Collector's Edition. Only the Dirty Harry Special Edition is available separately on Blu-ray (here); the other four movies, including this one, are available on Blu-ray in the set.
Here are the links for the Amazon pages for the new separate standard DVD releases of the other four movies in the series:
Dirty Harry Special Edition (2 discs, "special" is apparently better than "deluxe")
The Enforcer Deluxe Edition
Sudden Impact Deluxe Edition
The Dead Pool Deluxe Edition
Rating: -
At twenty minutes into this flick I wondered what it was about Magnum Force that bothered me. The introduction of David Soul and Robert Urich irked but it may have just been indigestion. Then at about fourty five minutes into things, just about the point where the Asian woman playing the cheap whore asks:
"What does a girl have to do to go to bed with you?"
Clint's answer:
"Try knocking on the door!"
I realized what it was about this movie that bothered me. It's not very good. Overblown, self-important authority figures and a truckload of poorly conceived cliché catch phrases none of which is worth quoting. Essentially another McHollywood's fast food movie of the Big Mac variety. Lettuce, cheese, pickle onions, stake outs, chase scenes and lots of guns... stacked high on a sesame seed bun. I'm not sure if it was more boredom or munchies but I never did see the end of Magnum Force and wound up talking into a clown's mouth instead.
Consider taking the kids out for a burger before watching anything that might kill your appetite. A good man always knows his limitations.
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