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List Price: $14.98 | | Label: Warner Home Video
Salesrank: 22168
Released: November 20, 2001 |
| Our Price: $4.21 |
| Used Price: $1.39 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Harry Callahan grudgingly teams with a female cop during his pursuit of a band of terrorists.
Description of The Enforcer:
Trapped by his image in 1976, Clint Eastwood resurrected his Dirty Harry character for a third go-round (out of a total of five) in this potboiler story in which the San Francisco detective takes on a group of revolutionary kids. Tyne Daly costars as a female cop who partners with the reluctant Harry Callahan, and she does very well by a role created merely to underscore and articulate the hero's various virtues. It's a dull package all around, but inside the wrapping are good performances by the two leads. --Tom Keogh
The Enforcer Reviews:
The End of the Line? 
2009-09-02 - One man parks a van outside a country cabin. A stranger appears to kill them both! He has emotional problems. There is a comic event in a restaurant. Then an "all unit" alarm for a liquor store robbery with hostages. [Believable?] Will they get a car? Yes, and Harry too. There is a big bill for damages! Harry is transferred to Personnel. [Was there an aptitude test?] the Mayor has new policies to implement. One candidate comes from Personnel and Resources. [Experience?] She knows the law! Some villains are planning a burglary to win arms and ammunition. ["Radicals" have replaced organized crime as the villains du jour.] These criminals leave one of their crew behind.
"It's a war, isn't it?" Frank has a clue for Harry. There is a tape from the Revolutionaries. Harry is back on `Homicide' again, with a new partner. There is a demonstration of a Lawes rocket. [Product placement?] Why does Harry lose his partners? They witness an autopsy. "Welcome to Homicide." They chase a suspect down empty streets, then to the rooftops to create action. [Was a double used?] Does the use of a church show a hidden agenda? Will Harry get info on Bobby Maxwell? There is a police raid, Captain McKay makes a suggestion. Can you believe official news? Harry doesn't play the political game, and suffers for it. [Was the Mayor of San Francisco as big a boob as shown here?]
Is there a plan to attack the Mayor? A tape is left in a phone booth. Captain McKay seeks Harry's help, Harry seeks help from Mustafa. Harry looks for Wanda and gets a lead. [Is there a political agenda in using that church?] Harry and Kate visit Alcatraz for a shoot-out. [No back-up?] Kate rescues the Mayor, but suffers in the line of duty. Harry launches a rocket at the tower. Will he get a letter of recommendation? A helicopter arrives with the ransom money, a nasty comment on civilian politicians.
The story drags in spots and repeats cliches from earlier films, as if they are running out of ideas. It has a very cynical outlook that could be nihilistic. This film seems to lack the production values of earlier films. Were you happy when it was over? This is more of a cartoon than earlier films.
Marvellous with time 
2009-07-13 - That's one of the Dirty Harry films, one of the first maybe, the third one actually. A cop who uses all his force to enforce the law and who discovers - for us - because he knows, that the main opposition to that kind of police force and police work is not so much the people who want security, or the press who only look for sensational news items and strong police work is good news, but the politicians who are moved not by principles but by a bunch of minority groups who are so vocal that they can cover the noise of a hurricane if they so decide. In this case we have one of those phony revolutionary groups who were inspired by extreme Maoism and pure egocentric paranoia and psychosis, who were - and are - a bunch of psychopaths in one word, who try to get money out of society by using fear, by capturing highly dangerous weapons and taking hostages, in this case the mayor of San Francisco. Clint Eastwood is a lot better than just this thriller but he doubles up the plot with the question of the integration of women in homicide departments in US police forces, which was a hot question in 1976. The films has gotten a new interest today because these pseudo Maoist and pseudo anarchist groups have become one of the most dangerous plagues of this world today? They are the FARCs in Colombia, they were the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, good riddance, they are many other groups of that kind that refuse to be political and to run into any normal political procedure and who know only violence and blackmailing. Am Qaeda is only a new perfectly organized group at global level that uses these terror tactics with the great financial power they capture from the stock exchanges around the world and from other forms of extortion and racketeering. The only answer is for sure the political will to defeat them, but the right strategy is not to shoot first but to corner them at all levels and then shoot them down if they don't want to come down all by themselves. There is no negotiation with these skunks. But we are talking of criminals here. What if these criminals have the power of a state in their hands? And the potential of nuclear weapons in their backyard? Clint Eastwood was a little bit young about this question. And that makes the question today all the more pregnant and potent.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines, CEGID
Dirty Harry III 
2009-04-12 - By this time the same old same old formula of partners getting killed
and Harry getting suspended for mouthing off has reached a peak of
boringness. His new partner, after his last one is killed by terrorists,
is a woman,
I don't think she is going to get to drive...
Harry is even called a Neanderthal in this one.
The old lumber jack and her end of the log: Tyne Daly is actually the high point of this film without a bra?
By this movie Dirty Harry is a characterization of himself?
I still liked it.
"If you want to play lumberjack you've got to learn to hold up your end of the log."
2008-12-11 - The third Dirty Harry, this time with Eastwood taking on a gang of crooks posing as terrorists who kidnap the mayor of San Francisco (John Crawford) for ransom. Tyne Daley as Callahan's partner and Bradford Dillman as Eastwood's superior.
Mckay: What meeting?
Harry: The meeting in this office three months ago when you said a high priority was to run these hoods out of San Francisco.
McKay: I never said to use violence.
Harry: What did you want me to do, yell Trick or Treat at them?
Eastwood's buddy the late Albert Popwell appears for the third time, this time as revoluntionary Big Ed Mustafa. Last appearence for John Mitchum as Frank D'igeorgio and a really pyscho performance by Devereen Bookwalter as Bobbie Maxwell, the ring leader. Grand finale is a battle on Alcatraz.
The Enforcer
2008-09-16 - A great buy for DVD format. Loaded with plenty of background on filming, story, and cast/crew. A top-notch production for a great movie series.
