The Story: The fourth Dirty Harry film (following Dirty Harry 71', Magnum Force 73', and The Enforcer 76') finds Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood, obviously) as always, in hot water with his police department heads over his lack of sticking to the rules, as well as with a mobster he angered and a young punk Harry unsuccessfully tried to jail. With mobs hits being made on him left and right, Harry is put on forced vacation and sent to San Paulo to investigate a series of murders where men are being shot both in the head and the groin. Jennifer Spencer (Sondra Locke), tortured artist and rape victim is behind the killings, seeking revenge against the group of slimeballs that raped her and her sister, leaving her sister so scarred that she is catatonic and institutionalized. Harry finds opposition from the police chief in San Paulo, and things begin to point towards the chief hiding some big secrets regarding the murders, plus, those darn mobsters are still after Harry, and his best friend Horace gave him a dog that farts and pisses everywhere. Harry ends up, though sheer coincidence, meeting Jennifer and actually bedding the killer. As Harry untangles the chiefs secrets and begins to see the connection Jennifer may have to the killings, the rapists themselves put two and two together, and decide to try and beat Jennifer to the punch. Will Harry get tangled in the middle? Will Harry turn a blind eye to her actions? Or, will she get to Harry before anyone else does?

The Film: Sudden Impact is important in the line of Harry films for two reasons- 1)Its the film where Harry says the famous, "Go ahead, make my day" Line, and 2) Its really the film that makes you realize they didn't need to make anymore Dirty Harry movies.

Harry butts heads with the bad guys... Harry butts heads with his superiors... Harry butts heads with his farting dog... Sondra Locke stares vacantly at the camera... Evil mad rapist laughs maniacally... Guns go boom, boom... Pretty much, true to form, a good example of a tired sequel.

Sudden Impact is way too long and plodding. I guess in trying to convince themselves a sequel was worthy, they filled it with a lot of scenes and side plots, but this is a predictable style of film, we know Harry will come out ahead, be it mobster, robber, punk, or psycho vigilante lady, so we don't need a lot of down time and exposition- just get to the point and be witty while you are doing it. There are several scenes, including action ones, that don't need to be there- most of Harry's buddy Horace could be excised from the film (and the film does forget him), Eastwood (who directed) does the same zoom in and flashback fade on Sondra Locke's eyes every time she sees a rapist and recalls her abuse (once or twice would have been fine), the scenes showing the rapists interacting could be trimmed, and the entire overplayed suspense ending at an amusement park is anticlimactic and boring.

Now, I am a huge fan of 70's cinema. It is the time when b-movies saw their peak in popularity and where they could push the envelope in terms of content. As far as 70's American exploitation films go, the two most popular mainstream-exploitation films were Smokey and the Bandit and the Dirty Harry movies. But, by 1983, when Sudden Impact was made, some of the genres were fading away or gone , the redneck film, the biker film, and the rogue cop/revenge film, which is what Sudden Impact molds itself after. The last time I saw it was probably shortly after it was released on video. I'm sure in my younger days I thought it was pretty cool, but then again, all rated R shoot'em'ups your dad will let you watch when you're too young seem cool. Now, having seen so many great b-films since, Sudden Impact feels a little paint by numbers, flat, and frankly, more trashy female revenge fare like the great Ms. 45, I Spit on Your Grave, (and so I hear) They Call Her One Eye, or Baise Moi make Sondra Locke in Sudden Impact look like Mother Theresa. It completely lacks what makes a mindless, trashy, exploitation films good, and that is a bravado, an energy that makes all the cliched characters and manipulative action fun as Hell. Without that energy, you still get a cheeseball, but one that's sat on the counter way too long. Besides, everything that made the first Harry film great, its mix of ideals, the 60's anti-authority combined with a fascist, right wing justice, really worked in the early 70's, but Impact was made in 83', and just carbon copies those previous ideals into a marketable product, not a statement. Plus, its just plain lazy- this can be summed up if you compare the robbery scenes that open the first Harry and Impact- In the first one Harry gives the long famous speech about his Magnum and asks the robber if he remembers how many bullets he fired and so forth, and it is a brilliant, perfect, cool scene. Well, ten plus years later in Impact, in a similar robbery scene showdown, they throw out neat speech and all they can come up with is "Go ahead make my day."

But, quibbles aside, Harry fans will buy it, and I'm by no means saying it isn't worth a viewing or two, but it really surprised me how much the film had paled over the years. Oh well, at least it wasn't another drunken orangutan comedy.

***On a B-Movie Side Note***- Albert Popwell, who played Harry's buddy Horace, was in the previous three Harry films (not as the same character) and was also in Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold. And, Kevin Major Howard, who plays the punk Harry couldn't convict at the beginning of the film (and later attacks Harry) a year before Impact was one of the freak gang rapists in another bad exploitation sequel Death Wish 2, although Howard is also best known for playing Rafterman in Full Metal Jacket. And, Impact is also populated with the likes of great character actors like Bradford Dillman and Pat Hingle as the two police chiefs who get to yell at Harry.

The DVD: Bland Harry film. Bland Warner Bros. DVD. Picture- I'm pretty sure its a safe bet that Impact has never looked better, with good black levels (especially considering so much is night shots) and color, but I think the resolution leaves a little to be desired. It is sharp and not very grainy, but anytime there was a tree in the background, chrome lines on a car, or line patterns on clothing, you got the standard "wave" effect (though this is could be attributed to the cinematography, its often a natural film flaw). Sound-Very nice, adequate 5.1 Stereo, Original English, as well as French and Spanish audio, with optional subtitles for each. Extras-Well, they did not go all out on extras, aside from the theatrical trailer, you get sections labeled Behind the Scenes, Memorable Lines, Cast and Crew, and On Location, but its all text notes and the kind of thing that makes better liner material than DVD features.