It’s 1988 and San Francisco detective Harry Callahan had had a long
career in keeping his city clean. This was part 5 in the franchise and his last
appearance as the law enforcer that was too quick for his enemies. By the end
of the first half hour, Harry has disposed of at least eight bad guys, and that
was only the start, a good sign of what’s to come of Harry Callahan’s final
battle against organized San Francisco crime.
Watch it, it is not a let down.A funny thing is that many San Francisco protested against a new Dirty
Harry movie being filmed on their city, as they sort of felt he was a violent
character that had nothing to do with the actual procedures of the real San
Francisco police department. A contradiction, cause the original Dirty Harry
movie, of international fame, did make some money for San Francisco due to
foreign tourists interested in sightseeing the places that became legend due to
Clint Eastwood’s immortal character.
Do I look old to you punk?
Go ahead, Make my day!
So, after the filmmakers got permission to film in
San Francisco, it was all set for the closing adventure of a timeless character
that will never be a bygone hero. On The
Dead Pool, Harry is the target for having put away Lou Janero, a mob bastard, who ran all kinds of criminal activities
in the city. The man has sworn to get Harry by all means. For that he engages
his men to try to get rid of his enemy in any way they can.
At the same time, something is going on in the set
of a new crime movie being shot in the city. Peter Swan who has specialized in gore and blood, is at it again.
Strangely, things are happening in the locations he uses. Swan has attracted
the attention of the media that convene like vultures to get any sensational
item they can get to show their viewers on the nightly news. Samantha Walker, is one of them,
although she proves to be a bit more intelligent than her fellow journalists.
Harry is asked by his superior to be nice to the
press because his image is not exactly what the force would like to see. He
clicks with Samantha in many ways, but their dinner date ends up with them
trapped in an elevator, being attacked by machine guns from the outside. That
brings them even closer. After all, the department wanted to appear to be more
cooperative with the press to deliver a friendly image on the idiot box.
Fuck you fucking fuck, I'm Dirty Harry and you can fucking burn in hell you shithead.
Before Slash played the guitar, he played the harpoon.
The Harry Callahan saga was rewarding for Clint
Eastwood, who went to make a name for himself as a tight lipped detective who
could outsmart and out shoot anyone getting in his way, or interfering with his
job. This final installment was directed by Buddy
Van Horn. Different men had been in charge in the other Harry pictures, Don Siegel and Clint Eastwood even tried their hand at them. The film is full of
action for those fans that went to see it because of it. On the other hand,
Harry remains an enigma in other aspects, which probably was the intent all
along.
An original promo still.
The recently released blu-ray collection.
Clint Eastwood's Harry was a man of few words and
a lot of action. As the stone faced detective, he never changed, but we kind of
expected it from him. The wonderful Patricia
Clarkson is Samantha Walker the television reporter that happens to catch
Harry's attention. Liam Neeson plays
the sinister film director Swan. Also David
Hunt has some good moments as the man behind some nasty incidents around
the set.
Dirty Harry our man is back on the road for the fourth time, and it is a
rather different film, sort of trying to get away from the comic book hero
feeling the late effort (The Enforcer)
delivered. Sudden Impact is one of those cases, where Clint Eastwood as
star/producer/director shows when he can be at his best, or at his lessor of
times when dealing with a crime/mystery/detective story in his Dirty Harry
fame. We get that 'make my day' line, and un-like in the first film where his
'do I feel lucky' speech was playful and cool the first time and the second
time at the end tough as nails, here it's switched around. He gets into another
shamble with the department, as usual, when he tries to fight crime 'his' way,
in particular with a diner robbery (inspiration
for Pulp Fiction?) and with a high speed pursuit with a senior citizen bus.
He's told to 'take a vacation', and that's the last thing on his mind. This
whole main plot isn't very convincing aside from the expectancy of the story
and lines, which just adds to the frustration. But soon his story merges with
the sub-plot that Eastwood develops from the start and things start to look and
feel a lot better than expected in the early minutes of the film where we sort
of feel a bit disappointed.
Go ahead, make my day creep.
Do you feel lucky punk?
Enter Sandra Locke's character, Jennifer Spencer,
whom we soon learn after some (appropriately) mysterious scenes that she and
her shy sister were victims of a cruel, unfair sexual assault, and is sleekly,
undercover-like, getting revenge. Her scenes and story are the strongest parts
of the film, the most intense, and finally when it goes into Callahan's
storyline (he's getting facts in the same
small town she's in on a murder), the film finally finds a focus between
Eastwood's classic form of clearly defined good vs. evil. Eastwood films the
flashbacks, not to say too much about them, expertly, in a fresh, experimental
style; the trademark Lalo Schifrin score is totally atmospheric in these scenes
and in others. It almost seems like a couple of times an art-house sensibility
has crept into Eastwood's firmly straightforward storytelling style, which
helps make the film watchable and way better than its predecessors.
Legally Blonde.
Two Sisters.
It's a shame, though, that in the end it goes more
for the rather usual expectable points, and until the third act Callahan
doesn't have much to do except his usual 'it's smith...Wesson...and me' shtick.
However, with Locke he gets out of her a very good performance (more subtle and touching than the one in
the Gauntlet) and an exciting climax at an amusement park. In a way I do
and don't agree with Ebert's remark that it's like a 'music video' in
Eastwood's style here. I admit there are comparisons with the simplicity of
both, the directness, but the scenes where Eastwood does break form are
superior to those of any music video. It's cheesy, it's hard-edged, it's not up
to par with the first two 'Harry' pictures, but hey, there could be worse ways
to spend a couple hours with the master of the 44 magnum.
Happiness Is a Warm Gun.
Say, How about some Whiskas?
I'd like to order a Pizza please.
Doesn't Harry have a signal as my former pal Batman?
Verdict? Definitely worth watching compared to the thousands of B movies
that I reviewed so far as decent flicks, in fact if you don’t watch the
prequels before you will find this film a very good action film, though the
truth is you probably have at least seen the original Dirty Harry and know
about how as being the first film has been considered as the best, and that
makes me wonder why do we always prefer the earlier films, as in Star Wars, The
Matrix, Alien, Terminator, The Toxic Avenger and a thousand other franchises. I
guess is the freshness of something new, after that we only get repetition with
slight changes which is just like listening to Iron Maiden, a classic band which
I love, but to be honest their albums all sound the same trying to recover the
old glory of The Number of The Beast, Piece of Mind & Powerslave.
Continuing with what was promised, today we set our minds in 1976’s The Enforcer, which is also set in San
Francisco & starts as a terrorist organization known as “the People's Revolutionary Strike Force”
that break into an arms warehouse & steal a load of rocket launchers &
various other weapons, homicide cop Frank DiGiorgio (played by John Mitchum) catches them in the act but is shot by the
gang. DiGiorgio dies in hospital the next day & his pal Harry Callahan (yes, our man Clint Eastwood) doesn’t
like it, very & together with his trusty Magnum 44 sets himself out to
bring the People's Revolutionary Strike
Force down single handedly if necessary. Things get complicated though when
he gets a new rookie female partner Inspector Kate Moore (played by the famous Tyne Daly) and so the People's Revolutionary Strike Force decide to kidnap the mayor (played by John Crawford) and as you
might have guessed; they gang obviously
hold him to ransom.
Yes, I'm back.
The third installment of the franchise was directed
by James Fargo and lacks some of the elements that made the original flick so
popular in 1971, yet is not bad enough to be skipped from your 70’s must watch
list. The fairly routine script by Stirling Silliphant & Dean Riesner takes
itself pretty seriously & just isn't that good I'm afraid, it's well short
on action & set-pieces, the story is dull & turns out to be nothing
more than a simple kidnapping & as a whole it never got me going. The bad
guys are also underused here, they barely feature at all & after the first
few minutes they completely disappear until near the end, the main bad guy
Bobby Maxwell has to be one of the weakest on screen baddies ever, he doesn't
get any decent lines, he doesn't get much of an opportunity to be evil & he
puts up virtually no resistance at the end as Harry blows him away. The one
aspect of the film I did like was Harry's partner, I did think The Enforcer was going to turn into a
mismatched cop buddy type flick as he is paired up with a woman but it doesn't
quite work out that way & while there's mutual respect by the end it never
falls into the established clichés. In a way The Enforcer could be described as the very first mismatched partner
action movie, but I guess it was worth the try.
Hands up motherfucker!
Harry's got a new partner.
Director Fargo’s job is average enough but the
film is pretty bland, a bit lifeless & the action scenes are low key to say
the least. There's no car chases, very few shot outs, one fight & little in
the way of anything spectacular or particularly memorable including a rushed
ending. The Enforcer has a somewhat
sedate pace & I just found myself losing interest at various points, the
whole film just feels lackluster & like no-one had any enthusiasm apart
from Tyne Daly who is pretty good in this a full 6 years before her stint as
New York cop Lacey in the famous TV series Cagney
& Lacey (which run several seasons from 1982 to 1988)
Technically the film is
alright, there's nothing here that stands out as being particularly good or bad
although the film itself looks and feels as it if was based only on the idea of
earning some extra bucks due to the popularity of part 1 & 2, in fact
this third film feels very much as if it was an exploitation film in all its
terms if you know what I mean: You have Harry Callahan, and yet he’s the only
good element you have in the film. The film was actually shot in San Francisco &
on Alcatraz this definitely has a somewhat gritty 70's feel to it. The acting
is decent but nothing in the award winning style other flicks do have if we
want to compare.
One of the few action scenes.
Harry's wife.
I love this poster.
The Enforcer
is an average 70's cop thriller, it doesn't really have enough action for
modern audiences’ tastes & the story itself isn't anything to shout about
either. It's OK but nothing special. Despite all of that, movie producers made
two sequels Sudden Impact (1983) &
The Dead Pool (1989) which tried to recover the original impact from the
original Dirty Harry movie.
Is The Enforcer worth watching?
Yes, definitely as it represents quite well the 70’s vibes many police flicks
had in those days, just don’t expect too
much, after all is just a movie.
Remember our entry on Dirty Harry?
Well, it just so happens that I totally dig the Harry Callahan saga, he’s the cop we deserve, his way or the
highway.
If I was asked which movie is the one that defines Clint Eastwood career
I would definitely answer the Dirty Harry saga, though some may disagree, as my
dad for instance. He would say “son you’re
wrong his tour de force is definitely Il Buono, Il Brutto, Il Cattivo. Of course Eastwood had done some very popular
movies in his early years as well as his late years being not only in front of
the camera, but also behind it. Clint Eastwood being on his 70’s can still kick
plenty of asses, and his 50 years career is his actual Magnum 44. All. Be that
as it may, when you play the character of Harry Callahan five times over an 18
year period it's hard for fans not to associate him with the part, though he’s
managed to avoid becoming a single character like many actors that will pass
away being remembered for their one hit wonder character.
Cool promo art.
MAGNUM FORCE
might actually be a tad better than DIRTY
HARRY as well as being the strongest of all the sequels. Not only do we
learn a bit more about Inspector Callahan but also it's a more interesting and
compelling story as well as having a better all round cast. Well, at least it
seems that way as time has gone by, because the supporting cast of David Soul,
Tim Matheson and Robert Urich who play the easy-going traffic cops would go on
to be well known stars in their own right through the 70's, 80's, 90's and 2000's.
In addition they are backed up by the brilliant Hal Holbrook playing the
impatient and easily irritated lieutenant Briggs.
We're cool, we wear cool sunglasses, no fags allowed.
Tough street wise cops were not a new thing to
Hollywood, but because of the civil rights movements in the 1960's and 70's
there were a lot of new rules that the police had to adhere to and their
methods came under greater judicial scrutiny. If there was a whiff of wrong
doing, the judge would instruct that critical testimony should be dismissed and
vital evidence rendered inadmissible thus making the DA's prosecution
impossible and an acquittal or a dismissal of a case a certainty. They had
rights! As a consequence it seemed that the courts became a sanctuary or a get
out of jail card for the criminals! Also, rather than having some dopey public
defender the criminals gained access to the new breed of wise-guy smarmy
lawyers who would use all forms of court room trickery to gain acquittals for
their clients. Whether it was organized crime, pimps, murderers, rapists and
muggers, unfortunately the system seemed to work in their favor, and believe
me, it still does.
This is a cool wallpaper.
Also, politicians became sensitive to the minority
communities complaints of police strong armed tactics leaned on local police
forces to ease off. All this coincided with an explosion of violent crime in
the early 1970's where the public particularly in the big cities became anxious
and frustrated at this. Therefore just like the super heroes from Comic Books
and movies such as DIRTY HARRY sort of impersonated the daily frustrations of
innocent bystanders who could do nothing against crime, nothing but to rely on
their imagination. In the follow up, MAGNUM
FORCE explored the possibility of vigilante cops acting as judge, jury and
executioner because the system seemed not to be working.
Check my iPhone earphones.
Inspector Callahan is not impressed by these new
methods and shrugs off pressure from above. The beginning of the movie sets the
tone, from his indifference towards the gunned down thugs as well as the way he
tackled the hijacked plane only demonstrated the way he wanted to do his job.
When it appears that someone is trying to put the courts out of business as the
body bags that are piling up in the cities morgue are San Francisco's dregs of
the earth, Callahan has the unenviable task of finding out who is responsible
for this? Harry at first thinks that it is some rouge cop acting out of impulse
that might be the one responsible for these revenge killings but as things
progress it appears that this is not just a random or a spur of the moment act,
in fact is a way deeper issue.
Yeah, my cock is as lethal as my magnum.
Callahan becomes suspicious towards a well-disciplined
team of rookie cops who he knows are expert marksmen. It appears that they are highly
motivated and are a product of a well organized shadow police force who have
support much higher up the known chain of command. Although Callahan has no
empathy towards the people who are being killed and to a large extent
understands why somebody might carry out such a deed, he is much happier
catching them in the act and blowing them away in a shootout. He is uneasy at
the blatant execution style of these killings and is way beyond what he thinks
is right! As his investigation unfolds, he too becomes a target and when his
partner gets rubbed out it seems that he may have crossed more than just the
mayor and the chief of police! Now with nobody watching his back, can he get to
the bottom of this before he becomes a victim, and more importantly who the
hell can he trust? His spare partners? You know the answer: His own, and his
beloved magnum 44.
Stop the fucking car!
Is it ketchup? If so it better be Heinz!
There
are obvious plot holes but it is more than compensated by great cinema
photography with great shots of San Francisco, shoot outs, an easy going back
ground score and of course a very smooth Clint Eastwood to boot. The sparing
between Briggs and Callahan is entertaining and produces some great dialog,
it's well worth a watch and I'd highly recommend this not only to Clint
Eastwood fans, but also to every 70’s stuff lover, as yours truly is.
Here’s the movie trailer:
Yes, within the next days I'll review the remaining films that complete the saga. Keep it real!
Europeans most certainly have a taste for movies that are extremely raw, some like to call them shocking, some others call them porn & violence, and some others call them as raw as reality. Examples of explicit exploitation films can be found in the earliest decades of the genre up to our 21st century.
Baise-Moi, AKA, Rape Me; though the accurate translation is Fuck Me; is a 2000 movie that shows us how bad is doing our society, and instead of doing something about it we prefer to sit comfy in our sofa and say "this movie is shocking, the guy who did it was a total wacko"
This movie delivers the worst of human kind, violence, drug abuse, rapists, prostitutes and a neverending feeling of discontent with our miserable lives.
The Girl got reasons.
"Doy you wanna mess with me asshole?"
The story follows Nadine (Karen Lancaume aka Karen Bach) and Manu (Raffaella Anderson) are two girls
that routinely endure violation both in word and deed on an almost daily basis
as prostitutes and part-time porno actresses respectively. The gang rape of
Manu and her drug-addicted friend shown here is totally different from the
clichéd they-may-protest-at-first type of rape scene encountered in some adults
only features. While the other girl cries and screams throughout (and is ever more horribly abused because of
it), Manu adopts a facade of indifferent resignation, cleverly robbing her
rapists of their sadistic thrill. Rest assured that the scene goes on a lot
longer than anyone would want it to and that it is very painful to watch, which
is the whole point of it, the filmmaker wants you to feel uncomfortable, dirty
and shocked with it; though this isn’t the first attempt at filming the darkest
side of the human side; it does offer us an up to date version of earlier
releases such as the hated classic I Spitin Your Grave, Aka Day of the Woman reviewed here some time ago.
Sex is a tool, an escape to reality.
There is no pleasure, only pain.
When Manu and Nadine meet and embark on their violent road trip, fully aware
that they ultimately can't 'get away with it', sex becomes a source of
liberation to them. Like so many guys on the lam in any criminal buddy movie
you can think of, they take what they want, when and how they want it, casually
discarding (not always violently)
their casual partners post-orgasm. One of the most common accusations at porn's
address is that the explicit sex scenes dehumanize the people performing them,
but here that could not be further from the truth, at least porn is supposed to
get watchers horny, here you’re supposed to get sick with the sex scenes.
Former hardcore actresses Lancaume and Anderson are both terrific in their
parts and the sex they have (yes, real
sex for the cause of the storyline) enhances their characterizations,
rendering them more complete. The 'cinema vérité' rawness of the digital video
format in which it was shot, interrupted by sudden flashes of style when
violence erupts (an artistic decision to give the viewer a feel for the power
and pleasure the women derive from their acts as an escape route from their
lost souls in pain), draws the viewer uncomfortably close to the action. Again,
that seems to be the point.
These girls do what they want, not what you want.
This film displays the truth we have to admit it, there's shit around us, feel happy dude.
So don't let the negative publicity fool you. BAISE-MOI is a rare film that utterly achieves what it sets out to
do and it bodes well for debut cinéastes Despentes (author of the sulfurous
source novel) and ex-porn star Coralie. You may like it or you may hate it, but this is an important
film that no one is likely to ever forget, no matter how hard they might try,
besides after its release French director Gaspar Noé, directed Irreversible in 2002, which was in a way
the opposite of this movie, cause we had a love story that was abruptly
transformed and turned into a desperate revenge, yes I will review some time,
but give me time, I own that flick and it was quite hard to swallow.
Here’s the movie
trailer:
One final thought: be happy with your life, help the ones unhappy, do it now.
Yes! I know I've been an infidel posting about movies that are considered true masterpieces by award winning standards. I hope with today's entry I get your forgiveness.
Today's entry has been made available in the DVD format in the Millcreek Entertainment 12 movie pack collection Too Cool For School, and follows the story of a man looking for the perfect woman, how original isn't it?
1985's Cave Girl is is not an entertaining film, believe it or not it even lacks the 'so-bad-it's-entertaining' elements which similar 80's films did provide.
The storyline follows Rex, a nerd
high-school student (bad choice for the actor cause he looks way old to
be a teen) who happens to be an incredibly annoying main character,
charmless. On a field trip he manages to find some kind of ancient power
crystal which transports him back to the stone-age. Here he meets and falls in
love with a curly blonde hot chick that looks more like an 80’s girl than an
actual cave girl as the film title suggests.
These scene features good stuff.
Rex meets Eva.
The stupid stone age folks.
I almost invariably find something to like in these 1980's teen comedies, but Cave Girl is dire from start to finish.
The attempts at humour are stupid failures, usually revolving around Rex nervously
trying to introduce Eva to the
delights of pre-adolescent fumbling. The other prehistoric people are a bunch
of grunting, idiotic, down-and-outs with straggly hair and fur waistcoats that
honestly look like background ornaments instead of being an actual support
cast. In fact they only serve to pad out the narrative which runs out of ideas
after the first 20 minutes and wanders aimlessly around until finally things
stagger to a faltering conclusion.
When a fart joke and a sight-gag featuring blowing up a condom, provoke not the
slightest response on yours truly, well you just know the movie fails miserably.
Just when things seem to have reached their lowest, new depths are plunged into
with a dire love song a la 80’s style
on the soundtrack, as Rex loses Eva and wanders around forlornly trying to find
her in the stone age.
Dude, this movie really is rubbish of the worst kind, the only features with
any merit are the movie poster featuring the scantily clad Eva posing with a
club over her shoulder; and the obvious exploitation early scene when Rex goes
into the wrong changing rooms and is chased out by a group of topless girls;
and the brief couple of seconds when Eva finally gets completely nude.
This is it.
Tits.
Curly Blonde and her tits.
Extra Tits.
Rex makes an immediate entry into my hit-list of the most irritating characters
in film.
Overall, this like many B
movies are a complete disrespect to the genre, but, If you think about it, on
the positive side of things, this film can be watched while you’re having a
party with your friends where you use your TV to display background images. I’m
still wondering why many great B movies haven’t been re-released and yet we’re
being fed with thousands of shitty movies screwing up movie packs and eventually
screwing up our well-deserved entertainment on the idiot box.
Here’s the movie trailer:
That's it for today and remember, I watch this awful flicks to help you on choosing the worth watching B movies.
