The Enforcer is set in San Francisco & starts as a terrorist organisation that calls themselves the People's Revolutionary Strike Force break into an arms warehouse & steal a load of rock launchers & various other weapons, homicide cop Frank DiGiorgio (John Mitchum) catches them in the act but is shot by the gang. DiGiorgio dies in hospital the next day & his partner 'Dirty' Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) is annoyed, very annoyed & together with his trusty Magnum sets out to bring the People's Revolutionary Strike Force down single handedly if necessary. Things get complicated though when he gets a new rookie female partner Inspector Kate Moore (Tyne Daly) & the People's Revolutionary Strike Force decide to kidnap the mayor (John Crawford) & hold him to ransom...
Directed by James Fargo this was the third entry in the popular Dirty Harry series of action flicks to star Clint Eastwood as the title character & I must admit The Enforcer didn't do a great deal for me. The fairly routine script by Stirling Silliphant & Dean Riesner which was apparently originally called 'Moving Target' takes itself pretty seriously & just isn't that good I'm afraid, it's well short on action & set-pieces, the story is dull & turns out to be nothing more than a simple kidnapping & as a whole it never got me going. The bad guy's are also underused here, they barely feature at all & after the first few minutes they completely disappear until near the end, the main bad guy Bobby Maxwell has to be one of the weakest on screen baddies ever, he doesn't get any decent lines, he doesn't get much of an opportunity to be evil & he puts up virtually no resistance at the end as Harry blows him away. The one aspect of the film I did like was Harry's partner, I did think The Enforcer was going to turn into a mismatched cop buddy buddy type flick as he is paired up with a woman but it doesn't quite work out that way & while there's mutual respect by the end it never falls into the established clichés. In a way The Enforcer could be described as the very first mismatched partner action flick but it doesn't follow the same path many other's would take after 48 Hrs. (1982) which is more suited to the accolade.
Director Fargo does alright but the film is pretty bland, a bit lifeless & the action scenes are low key to say the least. There's no car chases, very few shot outs, one fight & little in the way of anything spectacular or particularly memorable including a rushed ending. The Enforcer has a somewhat sedate pace & I just found myself losing interest at various points, the whole film just feels lacklustre & like no-one had any enthusiasm apart from Tyne Daly who is pretty good in this a full 6 years before her stint as New York cop Lacey in Cagney & Lacey (1982 - 1988).
Technically the film is alright, there's nothing here that stands out as being particularly good or bad although I really hated some of the 70's style jazz music that played in the background especially during the scene when Harry chases the black dude. Actually shot in San Francisco & on Alcatraz this definitely has a somewhat gritty 70's feel to it. The acting is OK but nothing special.
The Enforcer is an average 70's cop thriller, it doesn't really have enough action for modern audiences tastes & the story itself isn't anything to shout about either. It's OK but nothing special. The Enforcer was the third Dirty Harry film coming after Dirty Harry (1971) & Magnum Force (1973) & was itself followed by two sequels Sudden Impact (1983) & The Dead Pool (1989).
Directed by James Fargo this was the third entry in the popular Dirty Harry series of action flicks to star Clint Eastwood as the title character & I must admit The Enforcer didn't do a great deal for me. The fairly routine script by Stirling Silliphant & Dean Riesner which was apparently originally called 'Moving Target' takes itself pretty seriously & just isn't that good I'm afraid, it's well short on action & set-pieces, the story is dull & turns out to be nothing more than a simple kidnapping & as a whole it never got me going. The bad guy's are also underused here, they barely feature at all & after the first few minutes they completely disappear until near the end, the main bad guy Bobby Maxwell has to be one of the weakest on screen baddies ever, he doesn't get any decent lines, he doesn't get much of an opportunity to be evil & he puts up virtually no resistance at the end as Harry blows him away. The one aspect of the film I did like was Harry's partner, I did think The Enforcer was going to turn into a mismatched cop buddy buddy type flick as he is paired up with a woman but it doesn't quite work out that way & while there's mutual respect by the end it never falls into the established clichés. In a way The Enforcer could be described as the very first mismatched partner action flick but it doesn't follow the same path many other's would take after 48 Hrs. (1982) which is more suited to the accolade.
Director Fargo does alright but the film is pretty bland, a bit lifeless & the action scenes are low key to say the least. There's no car chases, very few shot outs, one fight & little in the way of anything spectacular or particularly memorable including a rushed ending. The Enforcer has a somewhat sedate pace & I just found myself losing interest at various points, the whole film just feels lacklustre & like no-one had any enthusiasm apart from Tyne Daly who is pretty good in this a full 6 years before her stint as New York cop Lacey in Cagney & Lacey (1982 - 1988).
Technically the film is alright, there's nothing here that stands out as being particularly good or bad although I really hated some of the 70's style jazz music that played in the background especially during the scene when Harry chases the black dude. Actually shot in San Francisco & on Alcatraz this definitely has a somewhat gritty 70's feel to it. The acting is OK but nothing special.
The Enforcer is an average 70's cop thriller, it doesn't really have enough action for modern audiences tastes & the story itself isn't anything to shout about either. It's OK but nothing special. The Enforcer was the third Dirty Harry film coming after Dirty Harry (1971) & Magnum Force (1973) & was itself followed by two sequels Sudden Impact (1983) & The Dead Pool (1989).