THE ENFORCER (1976) - ***1/2

One thing about the DIRTY HARRY movies I'll never understand really is how Detective Harry Callahan was never kicked off the San Francisco police force, much less locked up in jail. I'm not just talking about his lack of commitment to uphold a criminal suspect's civil rights, but how he tells his department superiors to kiss his ass.

I mean after the original DIRTY HARRY, in real life he probably would have been prosecuted not just because he blew away the mass murderer, but because the city government would have wanted to make an example of him. As critic Roger Ebert once noted, "Harry has solved all of his cases while on suspension."

Then again, why is John McClane from the DIE HARD movies still a lowly cop and not been recruited by Department of Homeland Security to handle terrorists? Why does the U.S. government still not believe Jack Bauer whenever he brings up undisputed evidence of a terrorist plan? How did an crying emo bitch like Anakin Skywalker grow up to become the baddest man in the galaxy in Darth Vader? I guess some logic lapses must be accepted for the greater good.

Yet, maybe they keep Harry around because despite the fact that he'll never lick boot, and his expensive property damages are a constant headache, but he is the sort of mean bastard you need to get the job done. From icing the Scorpio Killer to going to war for the corrupt system against vigilante cops, and with the action-packed climax of THE ENFORCER, he and his new female partner Tyne Daly storm Alcatraz to free the kidnapped Mayor from SLA-esque terrorists. (You know, back when extremist American leftists were actually threatening?)

In every DIRTY HARRY flick, you have an early sequence where the man displays his kickass credentials. There's a liquor store robbery, and he goes in to negotiate. The crooks made him drop his .44 Magnum revolver canon on the street, and promptly rough him up as they throw him out the door, demanding a getaway car. That twitch look on Clint Eastwood's face afterwards is just classic, and you know what's gonna happen.

Anyway, he's knocked down to Personel as punishment for his stopping the robbery, and he's being an asshole in examining desk jockey Daly, but the guy does have a point. Why should someone without any street or arrest experience be made an Inspector simply to fill out a quota? So of course he's just thrilled[i] when she's made his partner.

Daly has never done much besides this movie and CAGNEY & LACEY, but she really does strike up good chemistry with Eastwood in a pretty good "buddy cop" movie relationship six years before Walter Hill's 48 HRS. Besides the fact that she's a nervous rookie taking a crash course on police work, no men at the precinct takes her seriously...including Eastwood initially. But I must say, he does give her a [i]chance to earn her badge, and she ends up getting his respect. Harry may be a sexist violent Neanderthal cop, but at least he admits when he's wrong.

Too bad the filmmakers of THE ENFORCER decided to make Daly carry a purse around. A purse! I mean Jesus Christ, I've never seen a female cop, uniform or detective, ever lug one around. Besides, with America these days, its more likely that it would be the man with the "man purse" strapped around the shoulder.

What's interesting though about THE ENFORCER is how early on, his superiors get on Eastwood for targeting hoods based on their race, but later on, the same higher-ups arrest a local black militant group as the terrorists, despite the terrorist group being white. But its interesting how the police bureaucracy is just as guilty in racial profiling as they accused Eastwood of being.

With THE ENFORCER, I'm reminded that part of the success of the Dirty Harry franchise isn't just Eastwood being a badass, but the humor from him being calm with the bullshit around him. From destroying the Mayor's perfect photo-op moment when wrongly given credit for a bust, to crashing in on a porno shoot, and what he gets at the Whore House for his $75. What's classic though is this dialogue exchange when he's demoted by his Captain:

"Personnel? That's for assholes!"
"I was in Personnel for ten years."
"Yeah."

Having finally gotten around to seeing THE ENFORCER, its a pretty good shoot-em-up/buddy cop action yarn with some laughs, but I really dig how unlike such fare produced from Hollywood in the 1980s and onward, ENFORCER oddly for its genre has a surprisingly bitter ending. No epilogue, no plot tie-ups, just a perfect moment when someone can be both victorius and defeated at the same time.