Magnum Force (1973)

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

This begins really well with excellent credits, introducing us uncompromisingly to the weapon of the title, some vigorous, if seemingly over zealous traffic patrol cop action, an amazing telescopic rifle execution of a whole bunch of crime boys and their half naked molls, some wise-cracks and even an aircraft highjack. But Ted Post is no Don Seigel and things soon slow down as the rather tiresome battle of words between Eastwood and his boss replace battle on the streets. Action does reassert itself and interest is just about maintained throughout but the film is far too long. I actually like the 70s slips from full on action to mundane ordinariness from time to time with the sun catching the lens and things happen without direct relevance to the story, but this gets too sloppy at times and it seems a long slog to a disappointing finale, or two.

Magnum Force (1973)Plot In A Paragraph: Dirty Harry is on the trail of vigilante cops who are not above going beyond the law to kill the city's undesirables.How do you follow up one of the best movies of the 70's?? By making a solid sequel like this is the answer!! Magnum Force is not only a worthy sequel, it's a really good movie in general. Hal Holbrook is an actor I've always liked seeing and David Soul is fine too, but this is Clint's movie and he dominates every scene from start to finish. Magnum Force was Clint's biggest hit at this point as it grossed $39 million at the domestic box office to become the 6th highest grossing movie of 1973.

Entertaining, despite the plot holes.The second Dirty Harry movie. This time, vigilante cops are killing off criminals. Meanwhile, our hero, Harry Calahan (played by Clint Eastwood, of course), has a hard case Lieutenant for a boss, and is out of Homicide.Entertaining, especially as a pure action movie. The plot has a few holes but the movie brushes off these minor inconveniences with ease, hardly stopping to take a breath. More balanced than the first Dirty Harry movie. There Harry was the vigilante, to a degree. Now he's fighting vigilantes.Usual solid performance from Clint Eastwood as the cool, tough-as- nails Harry Calahan. Supporting cast includes David Soul, Tim Matheson and Robert Urich in early-career roles. Was, in fact, Urich's first movie.

Oh no, it is my television heroes as the bad guys. This view was probably echoed around the country when Magnum Force was first shown on British television in the early 1980s as it inferred that David Soul from Starsky & Hutch and Robert Urich from Vegas could be vigilante cops.Magnum Force is the first sequel to Dirty Harry. Clint Eastwood reprises his iconic role as the no nonsense San Francisco detective Harry Callahan. Eastwood was mindful of the criticism levelled at his character that he was a vigilante cop and this film was a response that labelling Harry as a vigilante is misconceived. Clint Eastwood always maintained that the Harry was critical of organisations and the bureaucracy that they carried. They simply would not let police to their jobs, possibly reflecting Eastwood's own libertarian views.In fact the plot really can be distilled to two people's views of organisations. Harry and his abrasive boss Lt Briggs (Hal Holbrook) on the face of it the anti-Dirty Harry, the cop who has never pulled a gun in the line of duty. Harry knows the system is broken but works within it. He might edge close to the line, even slightly cross it (which he seemed to have done in Dirty Harry) but respects the rule of law even if its only grudgingly. It looks like Briggs also realises that the justice system is broken but has a different solution.Watching Magnum Force again almost three decades later I expected the film to have aged. It certainly has a different depiction of San Francisco than the more tourist friendly picture postcard setting you get these days. Even the crooked segment of Lombard Street does not look like that anymore. What is striking though is the how action packed the film is, its absolutely modernist. I would say that this might be the precursor to the 1980s action thrillers.There was a time in action films where things moved slowly, you established settings, character and there would be a lull in between action scenes where you have quieter moments. Just look at Steve McQueen's Bullitt made a few years earlier and also set in San Francisco.In Magnum Force things are happening all the time. Bad guys getting bumped off by someone dressed up as a cop in a motorcycle. When we see Harry he gets into action pretty quickly as well, dressing up as a pilot to deal with a plane hijacking, later on we see him on a stakeout when a store is held up. The film is very well paced with incidents and action at regular intervals. Credit for that has to go to the writers more than the director Ted Post in my opinion.The film was written by Michael Cimino and John Milius. Both were the new wave of infant terrible of 1970s cinema which also included Scorsese, Spielberg , Coppola and De Palma. John Milius has always been a gun nut with a fascination with the military. He is regarded as the most right wing person in Hollywood. A film critic once said that's like calling someone out for being the tallest player in a professional basketball team!Cimino would go on to work with Eastwood the following year in Thunderbolt & Lightfoot which he wrote and directed. Cimino would achieve acclaim with The Deer Hunter and infamy through his follow up film, Heaven's Gate. He has not directed a feature film since 1996. There have been rumours he now lives life as a woman. What is true is that he has had a lot of bad plastic surgery.The film is called Magnum Force but during the climax notice that Harry dispatches the villains without once resorting to his gun. This is deliberate, Eastwood wanted to show Harry was more than a cop with a big gun that he had guile. It also reinforces the anti- vigilante message of the film. The ending is a little drawn out for my liking.One other thing about Harry in this film was sex appeal. Maybe he should be called X rated Harry as women just keep falling for him. Eastwood in his Dollar trilogy films was never into the ladies. That came in the movies in the 1970s which the star exploited as Eastwood became something of a sex symbol. I am sure it was also an ego thing on the part of Eastwood. It was the only thing that was odd about it, the Harry of Dirty Harry never seemed to have the social skills of being such a womaniser.The film is different in tone and style from Dirty Harry which is the best of the bunch. Magnum Force is a very good sequel and much better than the ones that followed.