THE ENFORCER

This is the third film in the Dirty Harry series, and diminishing returns have set in despite some attempts to freshen up the formula.

The pre-credits sequence where we meet the Chief Bad Guy (a psycho killer, what else?) is OK, as far as it goes.  

We then get the obligatory sequence, immediately after the credits, where Harry deals with a random crime he stumbles upon by behaving totally unprofessionally, in this case driving a car into a liquor store where hostages are being held, and then being affronted when he is bawled out and transferred to Personnel.

So far, so predictable.

Then to shake things up we and Harry are introduced to of all things a woman (Kate) who absurdly is applying to join Homicide despite no on-the-street experience.

She's played by Tyne Daly who's great in the part and the main reason to watch this film, because she's actually taking the role seriously.  Harry of course gets reassigned to Homicide with Kate as his partner.

She's replacing Harry's previous partner, Frank, who has been killed by Chief Bad Guy.  Despite being attacked from behind and in the dark Frank is able to get a good enough look at his assailant to identify him later to Harry before shuffling off this mortal coil.  

This is typical of the sloppy nature of the writing, which makes it hard to get too invested in the main plot.  Suffice to say that Chief Bad Guy (plus a gang of assorted kooks) steal a load of explosives and weaponry, and then kidnap the San Francisco mayor in order to get a ransom.

It's wild to think that Stirling Silliphant, who wrote the screenplay for 'In The Heat of the Night', had a hand in this script.  Apparently Eastwood was worried that Silliphant's rewrite didn't have enough action in it, which is presumably why the film now has a totally unnecessary bomb explosion in the middle of the film, followed by a seemingly endless chase sequence, which inevitably (given that it's the 1970s) includes a scene with a lot of nudity.

Anyhow it goes without saying that Harry is none too thrilled to have a woman as a partner although naturally he does eventually warm to her, although thankfully there's no romance.  

Kate does get to prove herself by the end although she doesn't get to do anything cool, unless you count shooting dead an assassin who is dressed as a nun, in a church no less.  Looking at the film now from a 21st century perspective it would have been nice if she could have shown up Harry to be the outdated Neanderthal he is.  But that would require him to admit he sometimes gets things wrong, which would never do. 

There's a climax at Alcatraz (where else?).  Earlier in the film we see a demonstration of a rocket-launcher, so sure enough Harry gets to use Chekov's Rocket-Launcher to vaporise Chief Bad Guy and rescue the mayor.

But that's not before Kate gets killed.  Due to Daly's performance this is a genuinely sad moment.  Even Harry seems mildly affected.  

According to Wikipedia this film has a lot more comedy in it than the two previous films in the franchise but I can't say I was laughing much although a sequence at a massage parlour has its moments.  A lot of the film is quite silly, but that's not the same as funny.

The direction is thoroughly undistinguished, being by a guy whose only qualification seems to be that he had worked for Eastwood before.  Combine that with an unmemorable score and one comes away with the feeling one has watched a TV movie, and a rather cheap generic one at that.  A feeling accentuated by the bland and meaningless title.