Magnum Force
Ahh, the fun starts at the credits. Since there was a backlash with fascist undertones of the last film, this one is written by John “Red Dawn” Milius, actual fascist, Saving Private Ryan script doctor, and Walter Sobchak inspiration.
I feel the original plot was so extreme they toned it down by adding those non-sequitur moments where Dirty Harry (of all people) upholds the law and fights for the system, on account of him being afraid of chaos or something. Whoever added the even more out of character sexy times with whoever random ladies take a gander at our hero, I do not know. Who the fuck thought it was a good idea for Milius to write a Dirty Harry script?
The surviving plot is right up any fascist alley: some rookie cops, straight out ‘Nam, (“the first generation that knows how to fight back”, they say) ex-Special Forces team up and for an unofficial death squad, traffic cops going around and murdering bad guys. Big time drug runners, pimps, union leaders (the worst scum, according to every single one of the characters). Nobody suspects traffic cops, they always discover the scene of the crime.
As a separate side-plot, there’s an older cop, recently divorced and Milius stand in, angry at the world and losing the will to live. Harry calls on his wife, mother of three and willing to fuck his ex-husband’s friend right there on the living room couch, children be damned. The thirst is palpable, Harry is quite the ladies man. His blue balls don’t last long, her 20 years younger neighbour straight up solicits sex outside his apartment, and she gets Dirty with Harry.
In between the hot offscreen sex, Harry needs to investigate the murders. The death wish guy fits the bill, but after accidentally witnessing one of the murders, he dies too. That makes Harry move to his wild theory: the police death squad, like in Brazil a while back. It all circles around to Tropa de Elite, eventually.
The circle is closing, the brass drums up by charges and try to arrest some two-bit criminal as the fall guy. This leads to a bloodbath and a dead rookie cop (part of the gang), meaning the death squad moves to recruit Dirty Harry. To this offer of impunity and a purpose to rid the city of crime in the most violent way, Harry refuses, so his partner is murdered with a bomb, and Harry almost does the same.
He reports it to the police lieutenant (the guy busting Harry’s ball over police brutality), who turns out is the leader of the gang.
They escape to an abandoned pier where Harry disposed of the death squad he agrees with and spent so much time fighting for its ideas.
Seems like a lot Milius’s script remained (certainly the rant about justice), but this was butchered, and the plot suffers from disjointed plot holes. The rest remains the same, top notch visuals and sound. There’s a chase sequence which does not hold a candle to Bullit, but it’s very nice.
This is my place for ramblings about sequences of images that exploit the human visual limitation know as persistence of vision.