Magnum Force (1973) Warner Bros./Action RT: 124 minutes Rated R (language, strong violence, brief nudity and sexual content, drug use) Director: Ted Post Screenplay: John Milius and Michael Cimino Music: Lalo Schifrin Cinematography: Frank Stanley Release date: December 25, 1973 (US) Cast: Clint Eastwood, Hal Holbrook, Felton Perry, Mitchell Ryan, David Soul, Tim Matheson, Robert Ulrich, Kip Niven, Christine White, Tony Giorgio, Richard Devon, Margaret Avery, Albert Popwell, John Mitchum, Adele Yoshioka. Box Office: $39.7 million (US)
Rating: ***
Magnum Force is an ambitious movie. Well, it tries to be anyway. It confronts the flaws in the legal system and asks why there’s such a big chasm between law and justice? Why do the courts continually protect criminals and their rights? Is there a solution to this problem? What if it involved cops taking the law into their own hands when the system fails yet again? It’s an interesting idea and one that could pose a real moral dilemma for Inspector Harry Callahan (Eastwood), a cop not known for following the rules. Unfortunately, it’s treated in too simplistic a manner to add any real depth to the second Dirty Harry movie. Then again, who cares? Can’t we just sit back and enjoy watching Harry do his thing without having to ponder deep social issues?
The movie opens with mobster Ricca (Devon, The Comancheros) being acquitted of murder and other charges due to a legal technicality. He has to fight his way through an angry crowd to get to his car. Moments later, a motorcycle cop pulls over his driver and shoots everybody in the car. Harry and his new partner Early Smith (Perry, RoboCop) arrive on the scene only to be reprimanded by their superior officer Lt. Briggs (Holbrook, The Fog). His vehement disapproval of Harry’s methods is the main reason for his transfer to the stakeout squad.
The unidentified traffic cop strikes a couple more times. First, he takes out everybody at a mobster’s pool party. Next, he shoots a vicious pimp (series regular Popwell) who killed one of his girls by pouring a can of drain cleaner down her throat. Based on evidence left at the scene, Harry deduces a cop has to be responsible for the killings. His prime suspect is his friend McCoy (Ryan, Lethal Weapon), a burned-out motorcycle cop ready for the “rubber gun squad”. He’s eliminated as a suspect after he’s killed at the scene of yet another execution.
Eventually, Harry figures out that a team of vigilante cops acting on the orders of a superior officer are the killers. He zeroes in on a tight-knit group of rookie officers- Davis (Soul, Starsky & Hutch), Sweet (Matheson, Animal House), Grimes (Urich, Vega$) and Astrachan (Niven, New Year’s Evil)- he met earlier at the firing range. Of course, Briggs dismisses his theory. Not long after, an attempt is made on Harry’s life. He might just be onto something.
Magnum Force is a good action movie that runs just a little too long at 124 minutes (it’s the longest of the Dirty Harry films). It would have benefited from tighter direction by Ted Post (Good Guys Wear Black). The pacing is a little off. There are a few lulls. However, it has a few good action scenes. Early on, Harry impersonates an overseas pilot when hijackers take over a plane at the airport. He handles the situation in his usual non-subtle fashion. There’s a great scene where Harry and his partner foil a supermarket robbery. There’s also a tense moment when he diffuses a bomb he finds in his mailbox. Then, of course, we get an action-packed climax with Harry shooting it out with the killer cops. It’s a cool ending.
Eastwood does his usual excellent job as the cop with zero tolerance for lawbreakers or “punks”, as he calls them. He gets off some good lines including the famous line about a man knowing his limitations. It’s the perfect comeback line when Briggs brags about never taking his gun out of his holster in all his years on the force. Harry replies, “You’re a good man, Lieutenant, and a good man always knows his limitations.” LOL! What a diss! Holbrook is perfect as the hard-ass CO who has it out for Harry. When it comes to the killings, he appears to have his head up his ass. I think we all know what that means. Perry is good as the partner doomed to meet the same fate as most of Harry’s other partners. As you know, his partners have a short life expectancy.
Magnum Force works best as pure entertainment. It’s always fun to see Dirty Harry in action. Whether he’s arguing with his superiors over his reckless methods or shooting it out with bad guys, he’s one of the baddest, coolest movie cops. Eastwood really makes it work better than any other actor I can think of, even Frank Sinatra who was originally offered the role in the first movie. The screenplay by John Milius (Conan the Barbarian) and Michael Cimino (The Deer Hunter) is fairly well-written even if it occasionally gets sidetracked. The jazzy score by Lalo Schifrin is a definite asset. It’s interesting to see early performances from Soul, Matheson and Urich, all of whom would go on to bigger things. While Magnum Force doesn’t have the depth of the first movie, it’s a solidly-entertaining cop movie. You can’t ask for much more from a Dirty Harry movie.
