The 4th entry in the Dirty Harry series goes super dark with a bleak story of rape & murder. Harry seems more angry in this one too. No longer spouting classic one-liners, he instead appears burnt out and in a constant bad mood. It’s subtle but he’s definitely changed from the three before. That sense of fun is missing here.
That being said, there are still some great sequences including a classic chase with a “old folks” bus (that should have gone on longer). There’s also a mob hit that’s pretty great and a car chase that ends in flames. But with all the death surrounding Harry, it starts to get a bit ridiculous and that sense of heightened realism (especially from the first 2 films) is missing here.
This is the film that has the classic line: “Go ahead, make my day.” And it hasn’t aged a day. One of the best scenes of the whole film. Clint Eastwood directed this one and the camera angles and shots are quite good as is the pacing but the story just isn’t as interesting as previous entries. Major problems with the 2nd act.
Many of the scenes are shot at night with very little lighting and that only contributes more to the grim feeling of the whole thing. Not bad but not my favorite of the series.