Magnum Force

1973 action sequel

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Dirty Harry takes on vigilante cops who are circumventing the system to rid San Francisco of bad guys.

Look at the size of Clint Eastwood's penis! I mean, gun. Gun!

There's something unsavory about the unnecessary inclusion of Adele Yoshioka's character, an Asian lady who lives in Clint Eastwood's apartment and tells him that she wants to sleep with him to start their initial interaction. Yoshioka looked young enough to be Clint's daughter, and although I'm never going to be one to complain about Asian women only wearing shadows, I'm having a tough time figuring out why her scenes were needed. Eastwood allegedly co-directed this, and you have to figure that this was his idea.

"Hey, everybody, we're going to add this Asian women who has a thing for me. We'll just have her pop out of the apartment downstairs, introduce herself, and then tell me that she wants to engage in sexual relations with me."
"Ok, Clint. But that doesn't sound like something that would actually. . ."
"It happens to me all the time." Lots of squinting.
"If you say so. But what does it have to do with the story?"
"It's needed for characterization. The audience needs to know how desirable Harry is."
"Whatever you say, Clint. I'm just a chair anyway, so what do I know."

I'd love for somebody to explain why this character needed to be in the movie. Was it because the film needed padding to get past the two-hour mark? Was it so that she could almost open his mailbox and blow everybody up? Sorry, about the spoiler, but nobody's read past that ridiculous dialogue I made up between Clint Eastwood and a chair.

I had never seen anything past the original Dirty Harry movie even though I like that movie quite a bit. Honestly, I only watched this sequel because one of my favorite musicians, Robyn Hitchcock, seems to be obsessed with it. Well, he's written two or three songs inspired by it anyway. Here's my favorite, but be aware that it spoils the end of the movie:

Isn't that a nice song?

Clint Eastwood really isn't much of an actor. He's especially wooden here, and he seems older than he is supposed to be. He's at least too old to be sleeping with Sunny anyway. But age don't mean nothing at all when you got yourself a penis of that stature. I mean, gun! Not penis! Gun!

I like Robert Urich here as Grimes, a foil for Eastwood's Harry. Grimes is a guy who never pulls out his penis whereas Clint wagging his around like it's a phallic symbol or something. Sunny knows who's got the gun although maybe she would have gone for Grimes if he lived upstairs from her, too. You just can't tell with gals like Sunny. There's a bit of irony with all this because you could argue that Grimes is the character with the balls. But he doesn't know his limitations!

Anyway, go ahead and listen to that song because it explains everything better than I can.