The first Dirty Harry sequel, and more or less a comment on the original movie. The villains in this movie, are doing what Harry was doing in the first film himself: taking the law into their own hands. Only they do it in a more crude, criminal way. Harry is back on the force after throwing away his badge in the first movie, and he's very soon in murky waters when he's confronted with a group of vigilante cops, eliminating those criminals who have slipped through the maze. Unlike Harry, they don't seem to have any second thoughts whatsoever.
It takes some time to get going (there’s a very silly scene set at an airport, echoing a much better scene from the first film), but once it does, it passes the time quickly. It was a good idea to cast a ‘softy’ like David Soul as the most dangerous of the vigilante cops. A shooting contest, involving him and Eastwood, is about the best part of the picture. Somehow they manage to transmit the feeling that they are two ice-cold sharpshooters who’ll face each other in a deadly duel near the end. Ironically, we won’t have this duel, or better: the duel we get is not what we were hoping for. It’s not the only drawback of a film that is – as said – quite enjoyable, but fails to be anything more than that.
The first film was marked by a nervous kind of tension, giving viewers the impression that they were personally menaced by the maniac Dirty Harry was after. Dirty Harry confronted us with some of our own darker sides: deep down we’re all a bit dirty, deep down we all want to do it to them before they do it to us. We sympathized wholeheartedly with Dirty Harry, and somehow this was an uncomfortable feeling. The problem with Magnum Force is that it’s nearly completely uninvolving. We never get the feeling Harry is tempted to join this bunch of vigilantes, if only because the aim of the entire film seems to be to soften his character a little.
Some story elements are a little underdeveloped. It's clear that the rookie vigilantes must have a mentor, but no real tension is created in this aspect, and the solution doesn’t really pay off. Mitchell Ryan has a nice cameo as one of Harry's colleagues with psychological problems, but not too much is done with his character. The script was written by John Milius and Michael Cimino, two guys not known for their subtlety. On the contrary, their names are usually identified with a certain rudeness & crudeness, and in this aspect, they certainly do deliver. Magnum Force isn't great, but fans of brutal action scenes won't be disappointed.
