This was the last of the Dirty Harry movies, and it came out in '88. And it's a massive stain on the character.
In the first five minutes, it's clear that something is really wrong. They set up that Harry's testimony has put a mob boss away. In retaliation, he's attacked by a group of guys, who run down his car, shoot it up, and so forth. Harry masterfully defeats them, including two headshots. Then the last guy drops his gun and runs away. Harry shoots him in the back, killing him.
What kind of cop is he supposed to be? This isn't anything admirable. It's psychotic!
There's a massive anti-media message to the movie, which makes it all seem very clunky. It's easy enough to write scenes depicting the media as vultures, but in this case, those scenes never happen. It's always just Harry over-reacting to some fairly trivial things.
He also destroys a camera, which seems especially out of line, since he had barely made any effort to persuade the media to stay back.
Harry gets partnered with a Chinese guy. He plays the part as comic relief, giving a punchline to go with every crime scene they investigate. Then he busts out some martial arts moves once he has an action scene. Wonderfully PC treatment.
There are a few highlights to note about this movie. First, Liam Neeson has a major role in this movie. He doesn't get too many opportunities to act, other than to behave indigent at being questioned. We also get Jim Carrey. Not his earliest role, but it came right between his appearances in Peggy Sue Got Married and Earth Girls Are Easy. He plays a rocker who is shooting a music video that ties into the film they're working on. We get to see him introduced lip syncing to Welcome to the Jungle. This is actually a point I don't understand. Is he supposed to be Axl Rose? Why are they using a song as well known as Welcome to the Jungle? It seems like it would have made better sense to use an original work instead.
When Callahan goes out on a date with his love interest for this movie, they are attacked by some mob-affiliated thugs. The date is safe. Callahan chases down the two gunmen. He shoots both of them, and kills both, despite the second one not posing any threat. Wouldn't he like to have proof of who is coming after him?
There's also one of the strangest chases I've seen. The villain is using a remote control car, packed with explosives, which he plans to drive under Callahan's car, then explode. This lead to a bizarre chase, where Callahan is trying to out run a remote control car. This sequence is funny, but it's hard to tell if it's supposed to be.
I'm hesitant to point this out, because it seems obvious…. remote control cars have a hard time going very fast or very far, and especially not both. They also run into all kinds of problems with every obstacle out there. And the person controlling the remote is also driving a car at the same time, to keep up with the remote.
There's one more problem with the movie, and it's at the very end. Callahan has prevented the villain from killing his love interest (who is surprisingly annoying). He's chased the villain to a pier. The villain is out of ammo. Callahan acknowledges this. Callahan steps out of the fog with a harpoon. The villain looks frightened. Callahan fires, pinning the villain to a wall, impaled through his torso.
This is another instance of Callahan killing when he had no need to. When killing actually seems to be against his best interest.
The amount of killing in this movie is distasteful. It switches Callahan from being compelling and heroic to just being a renegade cop who has a bloodlust. But the movie still tries to frame him as a hero, and that makes it uncomfortably bad.
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