Plot: What’s it about?
Dirty Harry is “the” American cop classic. I will go ahead and write the story outline just in case you haven’t seen the movie but if you haven’t lived in a cave for a good portion of your life you have probably seen this movie. Clint Eastwood plays Harry Callahan who is a bad ass cop who doesn’t like anyone and doesn’t care who he has to kill or what he has to do to solve a crime.
The city receives a threat from a psychotic killer that he will kill one person a day until the city pays him $100,000 in small unmarked bills. I know it doesn’t sound like much now but that shows how times have changed over the last few decades. Scorpio (the killer) who is played by Andy Robinson begins riffling people off once a day and Dirty Harry is chasing him throughout the movie.
This is the classic cop and bad guy with a ransom movie but it was the first of it’s kind. It is also the best of it’s kind, due to the fact that Clint Eastwood is one bad mother. He does such a good job that if you ever met the real Eastwood after seeing this movie you would be scared to death. That is what makes this movie superior to other newer movies like it such as Speed. Which had a great bad guy (Dennis Hopper) but the cop was a real weasel. I could watch this movie again and again.
Video: How does it look?
The picture quality is superb on this movie which was made in 1971. I have watched both the DVD and the Video versions and there is a HUGE difference! The picture is so clear and defined that you don’t feel like you are watching a movie that is 28 years old. I rate this very high even though there aren’t allot of special effects, for the sole reason that DVD has made watching old movies tolerable again.
Audio: How does it sound?
The remastered 5.1 Dolby digital is phenomenal also! It has really made this movie experience wonderful. While there are not allot of big explosions you do hear the gun fire and car chase scenes wonderfully. Also if you watch the video and then this you will notice that in the video they have the voices turned way down and on the DVD you can now hear them!
Supplements: What are the extras?
Not a lot doin here but you can’t expect much more than a total overhaul of the sound and video. It comes in full screen and widescreen format. There is production notes, and an interactive movie. You can also watch the movie in several languages if you don’t know English!
