Featured Movies
Partners
Magnum Force
For years I have avoided watching any of the Dirty Harry sequels - as far as I'm concerned the original could not be bettered, and any reprise would rather lessen the impact of the original films downbeat ending. Having said that Magnum Force makes a fair stab of it, and crucially this retains the look of Dirty Harry - alternately sun-drenched and dismal cityscape brought to life by a pulsing 70's funk soundtrack. The story itself also contains a great central idea - making Dirty Harry confront his own form of tough justice by going against an entire subdepartment of vigilante cops who take the law into their own hands. Unfortnunately though the film never really gells as well as it should, with under par action sequences (the climax is particularly poor after all the build up) and dialogue. The opening is particularly hamfisted, with the film losing all sense of reality when Harry calmly walks onto a hijacked plane - an attempt to outdo the original movie that ends up a farce. Magnum Force isn't a poor movie, and as a Clint Eastwood thriller is fair enough- but as the sequel to Dirty Harry it's a bit of a dissapointment.
|
