Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.

The third film in the quintet of cop thrillers starring Clint Eastwood as Inspector "Dirty Harry" Callahan, THE ENFORCER suddenly finds the series slipping into indifference. After the balls-out classic that was 1971's Dirty Harry and the fascinating if somewhat flat 1973 sequel Magnum Force, THE ENFORCER combines the worst elements of the previous two films into one leaden celluloid near-miss. The indifferent, workmanlike B-movie direction of the latter is more evident on this film (these movies were made on the cheap, but James Fargo, like Ted Post before him, is no Don Siegel). And the once-bracing characteristic of the lone gunman hero stepping outside of the red tape-addled bureaucracy becomes ladled on to ridiculous degrees in this film. In fact, I will soon announce the birth of a brand new cliché, so bear with me.

Such promise is squandered like so many instances of disappointment. At 97 minutes, THE ENFORCER has the sort of tight, concise running time with which to make the type of vitriolic action flick the original turned out to be before the two-hour MAGNUM FORCE suggested otherwise. The movie opens with the requisite standoff between Harry and a gang of punks, but the young criminals are really spiteful and Harry's retaliation is swift and heart-pounding. And since these movies tend to end with the ultimate showdown between Harry the hunter and his sinister, murderous prey, you can count on a capper that provides plenty of gunfire and explosions.

But between the opening and closing action sequences, therein lies the problem. Alfred Hitchcock once made a statement echoed by film critic Roger Ebert saying that a film is only as good as its villain. I'm pretty sure Roger made that comment when he was critiquing another Eastwood cop thriller, 1993's non-Harry Callahan-related In the Line of Fire, in which John Malkovich proved a rather formidable foe. Trouble is, in ripping yet another page from the Bay Area dailies, this time focusing instead on the Symbionese Liberation Army instead of the Zodiac killer, the villains seem to be faceless and derivative.

Whereas Dirty Harry had the bracing Andy Robinson and Magnum Force featured a snaky David Soul, THE ENFORCER has as its main villain a Vietnam vet named Bobby Maxwell (DeVeren Bookwalter), who probably would've worked better as a lone gunman. Instead, he (and we) are saddled with a poorly defined group of hippie revolutionaries who call themselves "The People's Revolutionary Strike Force." After slicing and blasting away a couple of gas workers, Bobby and his group steal their truck and proceed to rob a firearms warehouse. But then Bobby has to go and carve up Frank DiGiorgio (John Mitchum), who will die early as just another "sacrifice" in a whole laundry list of them to give his long-time friend, Harry Callahan, a personal motive for vengeance.

Before Harry can fulfill his vendetta, uptight Captain McKay (Bradford Dillman) must transfer Harry to the personnel office in time for the news that the San Francisco police department is hiring women in attempt to keep up with the times. The first potential recruit is Kate Moore (Tyne Daly), an intelligent, brash rookie with no history of felony or misdemeanor arrests. Naturally, the seasoned Callahan objects to her being in the same room as him, and thinks she can't cut it out in the mean streets: "You're liable to get your a** blown away." Harry underestimates Moore's tenacity when she fires back, as Harry turns away, "It's my a**!" Still, like many a partner of Harry's before, she's sensitive to a coroner removing the brain from a stiff and scared s***less after realizing she's had to chase a perp whilst toting a bomb in a briefcase.

The PRSF have their scheme all planned out: they have a cache of rockets and guns ready to bring San Francisco to its knees and they even have ransom collateral after they kidnap the mayor (John Crawford). Harry links Maxwell to a society of Black Panther-type militants known as "Uhuru," and he even strikes up a deal to interrogate their leader, Mustapha (Albert Popwell, who actually gets to come face to face with Eastwood in a scripted conversation). Of course, McKay and the Mayor swoop down on Mustapha's headquarters the moment Callahan and Moore leave and spin their raid into a PR stunt so that they can reward Moore and Callahan with letters of commendation.

Despite a screenplay written by Sterling Silliphant and Dean Riesner, who wrote the original, there's so many contrivances and unchecked motives that left me feeling just as jerked off as Harry feels he is at one point. I can't say enough about the fact that the villains of this piece are just a bunch of anonymous mouthpieces who always shout that they're "For the people," but are told otherwise by many others, who say they are only in it for the money. You have the potential for satire that seems so ripe once you consider the Frank Zappa-style irony of the previous sentence, but the script doesn't even want to work it up. At least a crude, right-wing skewering would've been something. And their Vietnam past is but a mere checkpoint instead of a characteristic. Instead, I never understood the end to their means and felt detached almost completely from Harry's pursuit.

And what about "Big Ed" Mustapha? He tells Harry that he would love nothing than to see all the white honkeys blow each other to smithereens so that he and his brothers could inherit the city. That's a goal with the potential to be realized thanks to the psychotic Maxwell, whom he tries to distance himself from. I guess it's because they're outgunned or that Mustapha has lost his followers, but after the raid, Mustapha has a sudden change of heart. In a rather silly scene staged on a playground, Mustapha gives Callahan a clue regarding the location of another member of the PRSF that eventually leads straight to Maxwell's Alcatraz hideout. The character sells himself out, and thus leaves credibility further strained.

Nothing would matter so much were THE ENFORCER rousing enough in its narrative to make us want to cheer on Callahan and Moore. As is the case with Sudden Impact, it winds up a sucker to a formula, one that holds no real surprises after coming off of two previous Dirty Harry films. We expect the captain and Harry to be at each other's throats, and it seems to happen after every single action sequence, thus establishing a chain that proved to be rutting. And THE ENFORCER is the first official film in which we see Harry Callahan bare his teeth and turn in his badge, thus now literally establishing himself as the outlaw. A smug reference to "Wild West antics" by his captain eventually leads to a potentially gripping but ultimately silly scene in a wh*rehouse wherein Harry interrogates the owner by sticking a plunger in his face.

Eastwood's rendering of Harry here is hardly as dirty as one expects him to be; scene after scene shows him preparing to star in Every Which Way But Loose likely before the script even caught his eye. Certainly, Sudden Impact brought a greater sense of danger and urgency to his character than is offered here, although we're miles away from the top-caliber talent he displayed in the first Dirty Harry, a breath of freshly seedy air still to this day. If one movie in particular deserves to be singled out for showing the man's boredom with his most unintentionally iconic role, THE ENFORCER is it. There's no one in the cast worth a mention other than Tyne Daly, who is perky and dignified in a role that eventually treats her as just another lamb. The script seemed to have been rewritten, judging from the commentary (we'll get to that soon), so many copious times that it's a wonder Daly's Inspector Moore is the most fully-realized and down to earth character Harry's been saddled with thus far.

As I get further down the series, all of a sudden I feel as if I underestimated The Dead Pool. There is a germ of a fascinating idea involving the nature of celebrity, particularly Callahan's, that I hope will unspool once I finish up my review on Sudden Impact. But THE ENFORCER is a so-so picture that contains a couple of high points (even then, they've been seen and done better before) and a whole lot of blandness in the middle. One exception: the robbery scene at the beginning features the gruelingly outrageous image of a gunshot to the testicles that hints at the sort of bracing castration-by-bullet metaphor that eventually become a murderous motif in Sudden Impact, and be mined even further for the disturbing macho mindset in a later movie like Sin City, the one contemporary film which I found as boldly alive and fascinating as the original Dirty Harry by simple comparison.

There's no further grit like that throughout the rest of this movie. THE ENFORCER, aside from its violence, profanity and a fleeting bit of group nudity, is a movie that would've been at home on television (cue the opening shot of a Daisy Duke-styled babe for even more nail-in-the-coffin obviousness). I guess that's why I see this film the most often on local channels and cable than I would want to on home video. What a disappointment.

At least the movie looks swell on DVD, as was the case with the previous two titles. Just like before, Warner Home Video have given the film a new digital transfer with better results than in 2001, when they re-released all the series' films in a boxed set format. I've given the previous films high video grades, wondering just how better they would look if I had the money to upgrade my entire DVD collection to suit the new Blu-Ray age. Again, the 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen presentation, even in standard definition, is tight enough already. Just a visual comparison from my memory banks shows the establishing copter shots of San Francisco a cooler shade of blue instead of the sickly garbage hues I've grown accustomed to. They've saturated the colors to better, brighter degrees than before, without even a hint of bleeding. Grain and print damage, as usual, have been wiped off almost entirely except for very small instances. Detail and sharpness have never been better, although one is a bit put off by the overpowering thickness of the blackness levels, which was likely a result of a miniscule shooting budget. There's also mild edge enhancement and some weak shadows.

The English Dolby Digital 5.1 track warrants near-perfect appraisal just the same. The original theatrical mix was monaural, as was the case with the older films, and we don't get that mix (instead, there are monaural alt language tracks in Spanish, French, Japanese, Portuguese; subtitles included in all aforementioned flavors). What is offered, however, is another broad, all-encompassing track that knows how to rock a soundsystem despite its age. Because there is more action than even Magnum Force, LAWS rockets as well as the typical sounds of Harry's trusty .44 Magnum provide against enemy fire for fine directional and bass usage. Given a full-fledged stereo treatment, the front channels and even the rears kick in with such authority that seems unbelievable, but make no mistake: it just sounds BELIEVABLE. Dialogue was always crystal clean and came through well. Like I said, it's nearly on the edge of unabashed excellence.

The previously audio commentary tracks by Richard Schickel and John Milius for, respectively, Dirty Harry and Magnum Force suffered from tedious narration, pauses and minimal worthy trivia. James Fargo, being the actual director, does a better job despite some shortcomings during his own solo yakker. Just like before, there are periodic gaps of silence and moments of fawning and repetition, but he's upfront about the nature of the shoot, the casting, the production schedule, the special effects, and even some of the angry fan mail he received for mishandling Tyne Daly's character. There's even a proper, linear description of the film's pre-production genesis as the script was being delivered and redrafted. Fargo even relates some regrets he may have had about certain shots made as a result of being inexperienced. All said and done, it's a decent enough commentary given a film like this.

Aside from the requisite trailer gallery and vintage promotional featurette ("Harry Callahan/Clint Eastwood: Something Special in Films," 6 solid minutes chock full of behind-the-scenes material), we get another new debate piece focusing on some hot-button topic related to the Dirty Harry series, featuring most of the same recognizable participants from other short features on the DVDs: "The Business End: Violence in Cinema" (30:05). Here, the participants opinionate on whether or not violence in movies either provides catharsis or aggravation. This is too basic a discussion to really be of any educational merit, raising points you've probably no doubt heard raised before in front of company and leaving out horror movies entirely. It's interesting to hear Shane Black, John Milius and Hal Holbrook put in their two cents, especially Mr. Holbrook, who once expressed frustration in front of his wife about how if the government would cut down violence, the movies would simply revel in T&A. I can't say I was bored with these interviewees, and some of the discussion is rooted in history and real life examples of life imitating art, but I wouldn't need to revisit this for a while.

Movie grade: 2 stars.
Video grade: 4 stars.
Audio grade: 4.5 stars.
Extras grade: 3 stars.
Final grade: 3 stars. Had I reviewed the 2001 edition, I would've likely given this an overall two stars. Given the improved new transfer and a smattering of worthy extras for fans, this "Deluxe Edition" of THE ENFORCER is elevated to an overall rating of three stars. The movie itself is easily the least of the five Dirty Harry/Eastwood vehicles, with a fairly poor story, dull villains and mediocre formal elements. There are two decent scenes of action and a noble attempt at saddling Harry with a well-rounded partner, but they aren't enough to prevent this rather dated, gutless venture. It took seven years before audiences demanded the return of Callahan and got it, with the release of SUDDEN IMPACT. To be continued...

SEE ALSO OTHER DIRTY HARRY FILMS:
Dirty Harry
Magnum Force
Sudden Impact
The Dead Pool

THE ENFORCER is a Warner Bros. Pictures presentation, running 96 minutes and being rated R for violence, language and nudity. It debuted in U.S. movie theaters on December 22, 1976.

Recommended: No

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: None of the Above
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age