Magnum Force

Harry Callahan is back. So is Clint Eastwood’s iconic scowl, his .44 Magnum, and his knack for stumbling into crime while trying to grab lunch. In Dirty Harry, it was a hot dog and a bank robbery. Here, it’s a hamburger and a hijacking. The man can’t eat in peace.

Meanwhile, men dressed as cops are executing criminals the courts won’t touch. Harry suspects a squad of sharp-shooting young motorcycle officers. His obstinate superior, played by Hal Holbrook, won’t listen. As Harry gets closer to the truth, the bodies pile up.

It’s a solid setup, but something’s missing. Don Siegel isn’t in the director’s chair. Ted Post is, and while he brings some inventive camera angles—POV shots that occasionally startle—he lacks Siegel’s ruthless efficiency. The first film was lean and mean. This one is bloated.

At over two hours, Magnum Force sags under its own weight. We get scenes that exist only to exist. A prostitute takes a cab ride home. Her pimp murders her by pouring drain cleaner down her throat. It’s brutal and pointless. We didn’t need to watch it. Show us the corpse. Give us a line of exposition. Cut to the pimp mobile cruising the Golden Gate.

Then there’s the girl downstairs from Harry. She has no name and one purpose: a sex scene. It’s there to soften Harry, to make him more human, more vulnerable. But Harry Callahan shouldn’t be softened. He’s not the generic Eastwood hero from The Eiger Sanction or Thunderbolt and Lightfoot. He’s something harder, colder, more essential. The script already gives us true vigilantes to contrast with Harry’s rigid sense of justice. That’s all the contrast we need. Harry could have stayed edgy. He should have.

The blame likely falls on the creative shuffle. John Milius wrote the original script. Ted Post had Michael Cimino rewrite it. Somewhere in that process, Harry lost his teeth. In a parallel universe, Milius directs this instead of Dillinger. In that universe, Magnum Force is leaner, meaner, and just as dangerous as the original. But we don’t live there.

Still, there’s pleasure to be found. As a Dirty Harry sequel, Magnum Force disappoints. As a ’70s Eastwood crime picture, it’s more than solid. The San Francisco photography is gorgeous—all concrete and hills that plunge toward the bay. The action scenes deliver. Especially the car chase that culminates with Harry driving a cruiser directly into an oncoming motorcycle. The stunt is perfect. The foley effects, the dummy rider, the way the cruiser’s front end crumples inward—it all convinces. It’s one of the most satisfying resolutions to a car chase I’ve seen.

And Eastwood remains magnetic. Even when the script fails him, he holds the screen. His Harry is still compelling, still watchable. Just less so than the original.