The off-the-leash cop archetype was cemented with Don Siegel’s taut, provocative thriller that neither condemns or condones extreme measures
arry Callahan is the cop we’ve been warned about. Though this week marks fifty years since Don Siegel’s genre-defining thriller Dirty Harry busted into cinemas with Smith & Wessons blazing, the general profile of dangerous, off-the-leash law enforcement solidified over the last half-decade of public discourse sounds like it could’ve been traced from the film’s example.
Wedged between Gary Cooper’s compromised sheriff in High Noon and Jack Nicholson howling that we need him on that wall in A Few Good Men, Harry Callahan presents himself as the bastard we can’t survive without. He’s the seminal ‘70s antihero, a man who’ll break the law to enforce it.
If the parts of Harry that won’t be domesticated make him a captivating tough guy and a productive member of the squad, they also mark him as an outsider unfit for a polite, civil community. From the meticulously deployed POV shots in the opening scene, Siegel silently conveys Nietzsche’s enduring adage about how those who tangle with monsters are destined to become one.
Though Harry’s not an ideal defender, the film concedes, his faults pale in comparison to what we’re up against. It’s convenient that Scorpio’s crimes lack the ambiguity in Harry’s policing, that he’s a psychopath who takes simple pleasure in hurting people. In Siegel’s astonishingly taut set pieces, the chief reason this nasty piece of work has remained infinitely rewatchable after half a century, Harry represents the difference between a busload of dead kids and a day saved.
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