Excellent but underrated film

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

I'm not really sure how, at my great age, this could be the very first time of seeing this film but I'm pretty certain it is. Looks very impressive in Blu-ray with magnificent opening scenes, shot from high up and far away and closing in on violent action in vivid, colourful close-up. Considering all the Italian police action films I have seen, odd that I should not have visited one of their major influences. Thinking about it Clint Eastwood is a pivotal and iconic figure, being influenced by but even more, himself influencing Italian crime and western films. This one is very tough and uncompromising and Eastwood strides through it, a man against the world, including the police officials he has to work around. Being of the early 70s the film is not as slick as one might expect today in so far as scenes crash and collide with night turning to day without a murmur. No time for niceties, its the story stupid! My only reservation, the film runs for 100 minutes, 90 would have made it more tight and we could probably have lost one of those meet ups with the major or governor. Splendid action though and again being early 70s goes out of its way to show a bit of sleaze every now and again.

One of the most charismatic movies ever made. It's infuriated liberals ever since it premiered but that was one of its intentions. Well done for it, and it was partly inspired by factual cases where killers had their charges dropped after lawyers argued the accuseds' abuse and violation of legal rights by police. Eastwood plays a homicide inspector who is so sick of the legal system being played by defence lawyers he has decided to be judge himself, meaning trouble for any murderer he's chasing.What's surprised me reading about the making of it is how many big name star actors were approached for the role of Dirty Harry and turned it down in apparent disgust at the character and the tone of the film. Newman I could understand but not some of the others - Lee Marvin! Step up Clint Eastwood and walk into movie super stardom! And there isn't anyone who'd've done a better job of it. Wayne maybe in his day but his day had gone to do it credibly.Eastwood played the zero tolerance cop with relish and conviction and no shortage of style. From the half eaten hot dog to the pistol pointing wise cracking ending, the first shoot out scene, so blunt and direct and full of charisma delivered a picture into movie folk lore. Relentless from then on with really hard hitting scenes for 71, this would cause a stir in the movie industry after audiences loved it and wanted more. They got a lot more and not just from Dirty Harry, as there were many imitators after this iconic (sorry couldn't avoid it) movie.Eastwood was supremely charismatic and super cool in his portrayal, giving us one of the most memorable and quotable movie characters ever. But a special mention must go to Andy Robinson as the really disturbing killer who has nearly as much screen time as Eastwood and goes to town on his nutcase compulsive murderer, Scorpio. You'd probably question the Mayor not insisting Harry Callahan be taken off the case, considering he wanted to pay off Scorpio from the start but it's clear even Harry's superiors have more than an sneaky admiration for his no nonsense methods.Dirty Harry, the movie is a hard slapping crime thriller that still serves as an antidote to legal weakness and injustice and political correctness. I've watched it countless times and it just seems to get stronger with every passing decade. The film packs a punch on many levels, not least pure entertainment and should be on any serious top 250 list. The fact it isn't on this one is down to the same true villains of the movie, liberals.

Well I only watched this movie because of Clint Eastwood, I have watched Gran Torino, Good Bad and the Ugly , and many .They were pretty good movies. My hopes were lot higher with this movie . I mean it's Clint Eastwood. People write songs about him. He made old cowboy movie look cool. But this one I found to to be boring. And many things are happens for no reason. Last half an hour is bit of interesting but many people would just left the movie.

Inspector 'Dirty Harry' Callahan (Clint Eastwood) is assigned to one of his toughest cases when he finds himself having to track down a notorious serial killer simply known as Scorpio. Scorpio leaves a letter at the scene of his first crime threatening to kill again unless he receives $100,000. What follows is a cat and mouse game between Scorpio and Harry but in this game Harry is determined to win and will do whatever it takes to bring Scorpio to justice.Between 1971 and 2016 there have been many cop type films and over the years we have seen many similar 'Harry Callahan' type police officers being portrayed on film. However, Dirty Harry was a very early example of a bad-ass cop who's prepared to bend or break the rules in order to get his man but, to my knowledge, no film has ever given us a cop who's quite so iconic and cool as Dirty Harry Callahan. Part of the reason this film succeeds lies with Eastwood himself and what he brought to the role; there's nobody else quite like him when it comes to tough-talking through gritted teeth and he's also capable of giving icy stares that at times can be quite unnerving. I think the important distinction to make with Harry is that he's a 'bad-ass' cop rather than a 'bad' cop; he isn't afraid to break the rules in order to do what he feels is right, but he also knows when to hold back and never allows his judgement to be clouded even in the most extreme of circumstances. For these reasons it's easy to have a vested interest in Callahan's dogged pursuit of Scorpio as more often than not we find a police officer doing a lot of things wrong but for all the right reasons. Of course every 'bad-ass' cop needs a bad-ass villain to contend with and this is where Andrew Robinson comes into play; Robinson was not a big actor (and sadly never seemed to become one either) and therefore going up against Eastwood (who was quite well-established at this point in his career) must have been quite a daunting task, but Robinson acquits himself to the role very well and manages to be chilling, menacing and ever so slightly sociopathic. According to the trivia section Robinson received death threats after his performance in Dirty Harry which just goes to show that a lot of people were so convinced by his performance that they must have forgot that he was acting!!!Director Don Siegel gives the film plenty of energy and keeps the film moving at a fair old lick; the screenplay also includes some humorous moments (I loved the unorthodox approach that Harry used to try to prevent someone from jumping off a high-rise building). Harry's general contempt for authority made many of his scenes with The Mayor and The Chief very enjoyable. To top it all off Dirty Harry also has a very exciting finale with one of the best closing lines to a film that I've ever seen.Anyone who is a fan of Eastwood really should watch this as not only is this one of his best films but he's also playing one of the best characters to grace the cinema screen (I genuinely can't think of a cooler character than Harry Callahan). Many cop films with similar bad-ass cops have followed, but few (if any) have been as good as Dirty Harry.