The Enforcer (1976)

Awesome Movie

A Masterpiece!

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

I loved it when I saw it in the theater when I was thirteen. It had action and a little bit of nudity. Everything anyone would want in a movie. However, now I think it stinks. Clint has made very few clunkers. His batting average is probably as good as the Duke himself, John Wayne. That said, "The Enforcer" is one a dud. It has a silly story and weak bad guys. It's like an R rated movies for kids.

I tend to agree with other fans of the "Dirty Harry" films that "The Enforcer" is nowhere near as good as the previous two. The villains in this film aren't as interesting or as menacing and John Mitchum being written out was a disappointment to me. It was good to see Harry Guardino again as Lieutenant Bressler and Bradford Dillman is excellent as the Police Chief. He and Clint Eastwood have some good verbal sparring. Tyne Daly is a convincing, gutsy cop. Also, the humour is a bit better than I expected. There are some good action set pieces but the gritty edge from "Dirty Harry" and "Magnum Force" is sorely missed.

Back in the Eighties when I was still watching network TV, I used to catch Tyne Daly and Sharon Gless in 'Cagney and Lacey', their female detective team-up in which they cooperated in both their professional and personal lives. I couldn't help thinking back then that it was Daly's role in "The Enforcer" that recommended her for the part in the TV series. Even when watching the movie today, Daly as a cop doesn't quite click with me, but that's probably just a personal bias. Even so, it bothered me that she got wasted at the end of the story, as her chemistry with Clint Eastwood seemed to improve over the course of the picture.Maybe you had to live during the era, but it seemed that right after the kidnapping of Patty Hearst by the Symbionese Liberation Army in 1973, action movies of the time described militant gangs with names like The Peoples' Revolutionary Strike Force and it used to bug me no end. Another one was the International Liberation Army from the 1977 TV flick "The Night They Took Miss Beautiful". All these liberation armies and strike forces and they never accomplished a thing except grabbing headlines and making a nuisance of themselves. Oh well.Certainly Harry Callahan didn't start out being an equal opportunity partner and given the situations he found himself in, was as far removed from political correctness territory as circumstances allowed. His training scenarios for new recruits were priceless, and he never did get far with his cruelty to animals exercise with Mrs. Grey from the mayor's office. Kate Moore (Daly) had to summon all of her intestinal fortitude to get beyond Harry's prescription of getting married and having kids; fortunately small arms training stood her well in taking out Sister Wanda (Samantha Doane) at the activist priest's church.Hey, I don't know if this was intentional or not, but remember the beat down Harry gave to the guy at the whorehouse? He used the plunger method on a guy named Buchinski (Robert Hoy), and I had to wonder if that wasn't a subliminal tribute to another action star of the Seventies, Charles Bronson. Bronson's real last name was Buchinski, I thought that was kind of cool.Well you just knew one of those Laws rockets would have to come in handy to close out the story. Dirty Harry liked to do things his own way, and what better way then to go out with a big bang. And to think, creepy Bobby saw it coming and couldn't do a thing about it.

The enforcer once again stars Clint eastwood as inspector harry Callahan who's partner is killed in action and he is partnered with a capable but slightly timid inspector Moore played by Cagney and laceys Tyne Daly . Harry and kates assignment is to prevent a Terrorist group named the peoples revolutionary strike force who have abducted the mayor of san Francisco and unless there demands aren't met he will be killed . This movie to me is the worst of the Dirty harry pictures simply because of the quality of the villains that are just a group of locals banding together to wreck havoc in san Francisco and go on a massacre throughout the city killing anyone who gets in there way there just clichéd villains who you could find in any action picture who could do the exact thing and the main leader of the gang named bobby Maxwell looks like a right retard throughout sure he has the appearance of a right psycho but when it comes to projecting dialogue he is stiff and dull . Anyway the action scenes are average and the performances by Eastwood and Tyne are outstanding and are the only the things in the movie which are worth watching so I guess if you liked the other dirty harry pictures check it out but you really aren't missing much this is undoubtedly the worst film of the series . Rated x violence/brief full frontal nudity