This is a story of two kids, Tom Powers and Matt Doyle, who begin a life in crime early on. One of them winds up going straight and becomes a policemen, the other winds up a crook. You can guess which one James Cagney plays. This movie is over eighty years old but still feels fresher and more original than at least half of the … Continue reading The Public Enemy Review
It had completely escaped my memory that both Liam Neeson and Jim Carrey (in yes, their only movie together) appeared in the fifth and final installment of the Dirty Harry franchise known as “The Dead Pool”. Those are two of my favorite actors for very different reasons, and if any modern actor was going to take over the mantle of Dirty Harry right now Neeson … Continue reading The Dead Pool Review
This was the first Dirty Harry movie to be made in the 1980s, and as such the change in tone was very noticeable. This was a time when marketing and product placement became much more obvious in movies, and these kinds of movies more or less became vehicles to establish catch phrases and make flashy trailers, and also tell a story if there was enough … Continue reading Sudden Impact Review
In this the third installment of the Dirty Harry series, Harry Callahan takes on a group of Mayor kidnapping hippy-terrorists known as the People’s Revolutionary Strike Force (PRSF), Black Extremists, and also deals with feminism in his own unique way. The feminism bit comes when Callahan is assigned a partner (which never, ever works out well in these movies…) that “happens to be” female played … Continue reading The Enforcer Review
Force, the second movie of the Dirty Harry film franchise was released just two years after the original, and in many ways is a response to the criticism leveled against it. It is quite strange that the bad guys of this film are vigilante cops gone too far unless you look at it from that lens of responding to the claims of the first movie … Continue reading Magnum Force Review
Socially and politically speaking now is probably not the right time to review a movie like Dirty Harry, a movie I have loved since I was really too young to be watching it to begin with. There is an argument made by some that some of the current rash of police violence can be blamed on movies like Dirty Harry because today’s policemen in many … Continue reading Dirty Harry Review
I do not think it is a stretch to call this the best Christian Slater lead movie ever produced. Not high praise when the next highest runner’s up include such classics as “Gleaming the Cube” and “Young Guns II” (AKA Brat Back Goes West – Part Duex). That said this is a hell of a movie, and Slater represents himself accordingly. This was also one … Continue reading True Romance Review
This movie, while both a critical and box office failure, is to me a good hidden gem example of a fun “garbage movie”. Take the preposterous plot that involves a large group of Elvis impersonators robbing a Vegas casino and then wind up turning on each other (have mercy!) leaving the two alpha males to fight over the remaining prize. (They just could not go … Continue reading 3,000 Miles to Graceland Review
Movies can tell us a lot about the political and social climate of the times in which they were made. The 70s for instance, as evidenced by movies like this, Death Wish, and Dirty Harry was a time when there was a lot of right wing backlash against the previous decade bubbling up. We had a return of the old masculine heroes of yesteryear, only … Continue reading Rolling Thunder Review
Sometimes it’s best to leave childhood favorites in your childhood. This might have been one of those cases. I would have been around ten to twelve years old when I first saw “Beyond The Law”, which also would have been my first exposure to the idea of biker gangs and such, and at the time I thought it was just about the coolest film ever … Continue reading Beyond The Law Review
Titanquisitor 