"A man's got to know his limitations."-Magnum Force (1973) Review

Magnum Force Review

Director: Ted Post

Genre: Action/Crime/Mystery

Codestar30 Rating: 4.5/10

Inspector 'Dirty' Harry Calahan (Clint Eastwood), a gritty, unpopular homicide detective for the San Fransico Police Department, who gets the job done one way or another (usually resorting to  simply shooting criminals),  is out to catch a vigilante who's taken the law into his own hands, and begun killing San Fransico's high profile criminals.

This movie's pretty simple. Clint Eastwood plays his usual husky hard-man in his usual manner. 

The action sequences are pretty short, as 'Dirty' Harry is good at what he does. He quickly dispatches criminals, usually with 1 shot, so the shoot-out scenes are never very long. The best is when there's some 'Hoodlums' held up in a site managers office with Thomson sub-machine guns and shot-guns,  and it takes Harry and his men about a 5 minute shoot-out to get rid of them all. 

The plot's pretty predictable, and if you have half a brain you should have no trouble figuring out who did it long before the film lets you know for sure. There is an unexpected twist however so that was a nice surprise. (The fact that there was a twist, not what the twist was).

The majority of the film just seems to be mundane, unnecessary  padding, broken up with short bursts of gun blazing (which is in disappointing short supply). Its not really a great action film, or a great mystery. However, it was fairly entertaining and is probably worth a watch if you have nothing better to do. I wouldn't say avoid it but I'd see no reason to go out of your way to watch it.