Five Reasons For A Dirty Harry 6

[KC]

Anyone who saw “The Mule” and who still thinks that Clint could still convincingly play “Dirty Harry” again is lying to themselves.

I'm sure you're right, AKA, but that said ... Clint did play Earl to appear older and less fit than he actually is.

All the same, I wouldn't be categorically opposed to a "Dirty Harry" prequel WITHOUT Clint. He could be seen in flashbacks to the canonical films.

[Perry]

There may be 5 reasons for a Dirty Harry 6 but there are also 5, 000, 000, 000, 000 reasons not for one.....The only way I could had seen realistically another DH movie would had been in the early 90's around the time Eastwood was doing In The Line Of Fire and most importantly if someone would had wrote a great script- not something ridiculous like The Dead Pool or shall I say Sudden Impact. I might as well put The Enforcer in there which I found a tired act already then. Something in a serious mode. Like I expounded many times, the DH series got weaker and sillier as it went on. The Dead Pool could be even considered a financial disappointment which only proves the character was played out as well as the shoddy script.

[Bobby Maxwell]

It’s up to Clint.

Golly gee Beav, I never wouldda guessed.

[Speer]

Dirty Harry 6 could become a rough copy like any Rambo 6. I hope it won't. Neither a prequel or a reboot. Dirty Harry was an icon and times are gone. 7o's and 80's are ended and so is ended the spirit of Inspector Callahan himself. I trust in Eastwood's wisdom for it. 

[bdc28]

I say this with a heavy heart, but in truth, I think Dirty Harry's time has passed.

This is independent of Clint being too old to carry an action role anymore, although I believe that is evident to everyone on the board.

Harry had a much larger responsiblity to the movie viewer. Harry, in each movie, ran a commentary against the system he worked for, and its different aspects in which it fails. Whether it be with administrative overhead (the inability of an inept police department to catch Scorpio) or a commentary on sexism (that Tyne Daly's character was his equal as an officer, not a popular held view at the time)...Dirty Harry was always MORALLY for the people, and in most cases against the system he worked for.

But, the idea of an hyper violent police officer taking the law into his own hands doesnt exactly have the market appeal it did forty years ago. As a matter of fact I would argue the opposite....the very things that were completely lovable about Dirty Harry forty years ago, no movie studio would get with five miles of a script like that anymore.

Think of it this way, my daughters generation refer to the movie franchise DEATHWISH as "Wow Charles Bronson must really hate minorities".

I hate to say it but some things dont age well.

[Perry]

 The Dirty Harry character was a tired act by the time The Enforcer was unveiled.

[bdc28]

I would agree with you only except that THE ENFORCER was a vehicle that introduced Tyne Daly. For that I would suffer it....Cagney and Lacy was my mothers favorite show 

[AKA23]

I say this with a heavy heart, but in truth, I think Dirty Harry's time has passed.

This is independent of Clint being too old to carry an action role anymore, although I believe that is evident to everyone on the board.

Harry had a much larger responsiblity to the movie viewer. Harry, in each movie, ran a commentary against the system he worked for, and its different aspects in which it fails. Whether it be with administrative overhead (the inability of an inept police department to catch Scorpio) or a commentary on sexism (that Tyne Daly's character was his equal as an officer, not a popular held view at the time)...Dirty Harry was always MORALLY for the people, and in most cases against the system he worked for.

But, the idea of an hyper violent police officer taking the law into his own hands doesnt exactly have the market appeal it did forty years ago. As a matter of fact I would argue the opposite....the very things that were completely lovable about Dirty Harry forty years ago, no movie studio would get with five miles of a script like that anymore.

Think of it this way, my daughters generation refer to the movie franchise DEATHWISH as "Wow Charles Bronson must really hate minorities".

I hate to say it but some things dont age well.

I understand where you are coming from BDC, and thanks for starting this interesting discussion, but I don't agree. I think as an entertainment vehicle "Dirty Harry" is still relevant. I certainly agree that Eastwood at 91 is now too old to do another Dirty Harry film, but I think the era that we are in currently that requires everything to be viewed through the prism of, for lack of a better term, a woke social justice filter or criteria, which necessitates that everything meet some kind of liberal values principles checklist to be accepted as valid entertainment, is likely transitory. I think it's a bit too rigid, not reflective of modern life and the way many think and live, and in general, not supported by the majority of the American people. I think a vocal minority is very committed to it, and that view is in ascendancy currently (perhaps your daughter may be one of these voices haha), but I think it's destined to likely be moderated over time.

I personally support greater social justice in American society, and would agree that there are a variety of inequities that should be addressed, and that that's a valid goal for public policy, but I don't think our entertainment films and movies need to be made with that in mind. I don't feel that we should be catering to those interests to such an extent that we reject entertainment vehicles that may not reinforce those values. Entertainment should be displaying the full panoply of human experience, values, ideologies, etc, and doesn't need to be seen as a way to promote positive social values to the detriment of being entertaining. I also think different people may respond to this differently. For example, I find the John Wick movies to be very disturbing. Watching him slaughter dozens of people in seconds in each scene, with no explanation of the consequences, or the collateral damage he is leaving behind, I personally don't find entertaining, but many still do.   

I don't think very many people would endorse the type of police brutality that Dirty Harry committed as a police practice in real life, but I think it did provide a useful counterbalance to the prevailing view, and legal jurisprudence, of the time, which was heavily in the direction of the protection of the rights of the criminal rather than on safeguarding the life or safety of his potential victims. I certainly support that line of jurisprudence and case law as a matter of public policy, but characters blurring the lines between doing what is right/just, and what is merciful/lawful, is a common archetype that is still very popular today (see the Harry Bosch novels and TV show, and the Jack Reacher novels, and in production TV show, both characters which are very popular even in our woke times) for modern examples. I think those extremes are useful as social commentaries, and as a way to embody a larger conversation on how far is too far, how much we should balance doing what is right with what is legal, with doing what is merciful as opposed to what is just, and how much we should incentivize the protection of the rights of criminals with the right of citizens to feel safe in their own communities. These are universal and timeless themes, and I think the pendulum is likely to swing back to more moderate perspectives with time.

[bdc28]

AKA23, I have MISSED our convos...please lets liven this board up .

I hear the slight tongue in cheek each time you say "woke", and I get it, cancel culture IS very heavy handed. But at some point, we have to sit back and reflect on when realities have to be....in a sense....checked. To use your pendulum swinging anology, there is a point where the pendulum can swing TOO far (point of no return) and break the pendulum, ending the swing. This is why I dont think a Dirty Harry movie, at least not in its purest incantation, would even be considered by a movie studio. They would have to change the character SO MUCH, it would no longer BE Dirty Harry.

In the 1970s, police officers being so passionate about doing the right thing, that they constantly beat up, or murdered the perpetrators it was just accepted. Not just in the movie theater, at home. Starsky and Hutch, Mannix, Baretta, Kojak....none of them were slow to violate a suspects rights, if they thought it was necessary.

Now here is one of the problems. In all of these shows, and movies (I mentioned Charles Bronson), the suspects were ALWAYS minorities. I mean come on there is a serious message to the first "Do you feel lucky punk" scene, that all the bank robbers were minorities. Now in an age when minorities had VERY LITTLE representation of themselves on TV or movies, that was just accepted...but it DID have dire ramifications to the people that they represented.

Flash forward: George Floyd, the straw that broke the camels back. It was not the fact that the police departments havent had an open kill policy on minorities since the 1800s, almost every minority (myself included) can tell you a personal story of a person THEY know the police assassinated for no just cause.

Now, do I think that Dirty Harry would be represented as an officer like that? No I think any script written around him would go to great pains to avoid making him look ANYTHING like that....which is the problem. A large portion of Dirty Harry, whether we like it or not, is that he is a rogue cop that does things on his own terms. That type of policing is quite frankly, not loved anymore.

Which leads us to the other part, the messaging. You mentioned that you dont think you needed social commentary to make a DH movie. The last two installments of DH had zero messages, and they FLOPPED. No one cared about Sondra Locke, or the one where he was partnered with an Asian American. They just were ...BLEH.

I would argue that quite a bit of Harry's responsiblity to the viewer, is to make them question why he is there, or else he runs the danger of turning into Alonzo from Training Day, amoral and dangerous (as you mentioned, like John Wick).

There has be a cause.

[The Highlander]

Both of the final two installments of the Dirty Harry franchise did NOT flop.  I agree that it was getting tired by the time of the last movie, "The Dead Pool."  And that particular film did not make a huge profit.

Clint, himself, has said over the years that he probably would not do another DH movie because he did not know where else to take the character.  And he is too professional to do one just for the sake of doing it.

The main reason for my post, however, is to point out that the second-to-last movie, "Sudden Impact," was NOT a flop.  In fact, I believe it was the highest grossing of all the DH movies.

To add another thought, I can definitely envision Clint making a final DH movie playing Harry at Clint's current age and using a lot of flashbacks from the previous movies as tie-ins to perhaps identify some unknown arrestee from the past coming back for revenge.

Such a movie could also be a vehicle to further flesh out Harry's background, how he became such an iconic marksman, etc.  What made him the tough-as-nails individual who will do whatever is necessary to do the right thing.

I've always fancied Harry Callahan as being a great military man in his younger years, perhaps a Rambo type of one-man force, or a deadly sniper, etc.  I can also envision a SF police department eager to recruit such a rare talent -- much to their occassional chagrin after they got their wish.  LOL

I think a lot of things could be explored to show how/why he became the law enforcement officer he was.  Perhaps something tied into contemporary social issues to offer those messages, of the earlier movies, that some of us have written about.

And, while I would love to see one final DH movie starring Clint -- I definitely do NOT want to see yet another Hollywood rebooting of an iconic franchise.  In my opinion, James Bond should have been discontinued after the retirement of the best & only Bond, Sean Connery.

Arnold is the only one who can truly play The Terminator -- and Clint is the one and only Dirty Harry.

[Perry]

I got news for you pal, No one is showing up at the box office to see Eastwood at this stage of his life in a Dirty Harry movie.

[BobbyMaxwell]

Oh, I don't know. Maybe have Callahan come out of retirement to help Harry Jr (Scoot Eastwood) solve a seemingly Scorpio copycat. I agree, he couldn't be really believable as an action star anymore, but he always impressed with his mind with police work. He could pass the torch to Harry Jr.

It's doable. As long as he's above dirt.