Magnum Force

Number two in the Dirty Harry saga. I have to say I found this one a little improbable. There is a secret group of rookie motorcycle patrolmen who are carrying out vigilante justice in San Francisco. The folks they kill all richly deserve killing, but this is too raw for even Harry Callahan. And actually, aside from a few lapses like torturing the kidnapper in the first film, Harry actually does not act as a law unto himself. The people he kills are all shot in the act of committing dangerous felonies and putting the public in danger. Harry bends the rules pretty hard, but never would kill someone in cold blood. Hal Holbrook plays the obligatory asshole Lieutenant who is always in Harry’s face. You are supposed to hate him, and you do. And again, this movie stacks the deck against Harry by having cops like Holbrook always bitching about how Harry gets the job done, never acknowledging the fact that he does get it done. This is a good action time-waster, nothing more. Oh, should mention that three of the Four Bikers of the Apocalypse were guys who would go on to bigger careers later. The only one I recognized was David Soul, TV’s Hutch. The others were Robert Urich and Tim Matheson.