The Enforcer (1976)

Genres

Action, Thriller

Director

James Fargo

Country

USA

Cast

Clint Eastwood, Tyne Daly, Harry Guardino, Bradford Dillman, John Mitchum, DeVeren Bookwalter, Abert Popwell, John Crawford, Robert Hoy, Michael Cavanaugh, Jocelyn Jones, Dirk Durock, Samantha Doane, M.G. Kelly, Terry McGovern, John Roselius, Rudy Ramos, Joe Spano

Storyline

Inspector Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) teams with a new partner, Inspector Kate Moore (Tyne Daly), to take down a terrorist group.

Opinion

After the average Magnum Force, the Dirty Harry franchise keeps going down with The Enforcer, a pretty weak and barely fun cop movie.

The most surprising aspect of this film is the writing. Considering all the people involved in the creative process - two people to write the story, two people to write the characters and two people to write the script -, this is a real mess. The story is bland and boring, it doesn't have anything original, the twists can barely be called twists. In addition, it has a whole battle of sexes plot that is quite offensive and sexist.

The characters aren't any better. I was actually excited about Callahan's female partner but the character is terrible. Same goes with Callahan himself, who is now nothing more than a caricature of the Callahan in Dirty Harry. And Clint Eastwood really does a great job at doing a parody of himself. The character ended up being so unlikable, you'll probably side with his supervisors.

James Fargo's direction is bland, to say the least. The film looks lifeless. It lacks tension, an atmospheric score, and good action. It only has violence and it's not enough to make the film exciting.