Dirty Harry asks "Do You Feel Lucky?" (1971)

After I saw October fly by and still not getting to see all the movies I wanted to in that horror themed month, I started realizing how quickly the days go by and how few days I have left to watch a new movie per day. It's made me rethink what I want to spend those days on, and I want to try to focus much more on movies I should have seen long ago. Today that meant I put on Dirty Harry to watch for the first time. I've had this movie on my list of shame all year long, and it's gotten to the point that the end of the year is in sight and I still haven't seen it! I told myself "this ends now!" I had a lot of expectations, and I was honestly worried this 1971 film could have aged too much and not lived up to what I had hoped for. My thoughts after finally seeing the movie after the jump.


Inspector Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) always seems to pull the lowest, dirtiest jobs in the police force. He also doesn't always follow the rules. For these reasons, and maybe a few others, he has the nickname 'Dirty Harry'. A new killer has set his sights on the city of San Francisco, killing a person everyday with a sniper rifle, leaving notes and demanding money from the city. Known only as Scorpio (Andrew Robinson), can Dirty Harry and his new partner stop this menace before more lives are lost?

Scorpio isn't the only crime in the city!

There were two things I didn't expect to find in this movie. Firstly, and I'm really not sure why, but I didn't expect to find such a good detective story in the hunt for Scorpio. I thought it would be much more straight forward and predictable, but it wasn't. I guess I just figured he went around shooting people, which I guess he does kinda do, but I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of the story. The other thing I liked was that Callahan actually deals with some other crime and police matters in addition to trying to find Scorpio. He stops a bank robbery, and even deals with a suicide jumper in his own unique way.

Andrew Robinson makes his film debut as the killer Scorpio

The acting was really good in this. I instantly believed in Dirty Harry, Scorpio, and even the side characters like the Mayor of San Francisco and Callahan's partner Inspector Chico Gonzalez. There's no point in going on about how great Clint Eastwood was in this role. It's one of his most famous after all. It really speaks for itself. What I would like to point out is that Andrew Robinson was also the actor I had recognized in Hellraiser, but he was so much younger in this, I almost didn't recognize him! After looking it up, it turns out this was his first movie ever! No wonder he was such a creeper on Deep Space Nine! He just pulls it off so well!

The famous .44 Magnum. It'll blow your head clean off!

In the end Dirty Harry totally lived up to its reputation, and even went beyond what I thought I might find in a 70s cop movie. I understand there are more movies starring the great Harry Callahan, but they've all got different titles. None of this "Dirty Harry 2" crap. It'll take a bit of investigating, but I think it'll be worth it to see more. If you were like me, and you've never seen Dirty Harry, give it a chance, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised like I was.