GET THE FUCK OUTTA HERE!!!!

I'm certainly not making the argument that this is a Liberal film, but I sincerely think that the "fascist" label (not claiming you made it) is thrown around way, way too much.

I think it's very ambivalent about how far Harry goes as well.

Harry is also not a serial killer. Paul Kersey is a bloodthristy lunatic.

Y'know, Scorpio, compared to Zodiac (who was still at large in SF when this was being shot), really just isn't that cartoonish.

I still think the original film is a hell of a lot more complex, politically, than people want to grapple with.

Well, I think he's lived with the baggage of being labeled whatever people needed to label him for so long that he's just washed his hands of it. Whatever you take from it is what you take. I deeply respect that.

Absolutely!! Anytime.

I'm not arguing that the point isn't "the system is broken," far from it. That's exactly the point, but I think a lot of people (and I'm not intending to accuse you of this, only commenting on the general tenor of discussion around the film) tend to damn the film as far more simplistic than it actually is.

One of the large problems in discussing this film, is the Iconic
cultural impact that the character ultimately had, over four sequels, as opposed to the one-off movie that Don Siegel and Eastwood were making.

Call me crazy, but as a piece of art (and I think Dirty Harry is), I have no problem with complicating the issue. I think the film, several times over, asks us to question if Callahan and Scorpio aren't variations on the same kind of monster. Adding to the football stadium scene, the final moments show Harry with a…

I think it was arty. There was art in the fact that we understood the brutality, but then the way it was shot confronted how questionable it was. I don't see how you can watch that scene and not think Harry has completely lost it. I understand why, I feel it's fully in character, it's also completely over the line,…

Good God.

This is a quintessential problem in this kind of discussion, and I mean ABSOLUTELY no disrespect. Briehan has read about what things where like when this film came out, but I highly doubt he lived through it (I barely did). You have to take these films as snapshots of their time, and not for what they seem to be about…

This. It's not an action movie. It has action SCENES, but it's a procedural.

It's a funny scene, but I always think of Gene Siskel's response to it…

I think each sequel forces Harry to see his own weaknesses…Magnum Force is the dark side of the vigilante Cop, The Enforcer has him confront his sexism, Sudden Impact has him hunting a murderer who he thinks, deep down, is justified, Dead Pool is…kinda awful. LOL

Totally agree. This is one of those films….

The "do you feel lucky" scene at the top of the picture, IMHO, doesn't play that way, at all. Harry's gun is empty, and he absolutely knows it. The delivery is almost playful, because he's already defused the situation.

I think you're giving the short shrift to the complexity of how Harry is handled in this film. Yes, he is the hero, but the film is fully aware that he is operating outside the law, and grapples with it. The torture scene in the football stadium is the best example, it shows Harry as completely unhinged, and the film…