Clint Eastwood’sThe Enforcerbeat Michael Bay to his best movie by a good 20 years. Despite having been a star for decades, there are surprisingly fewClint Eastwood movie franchisesin existence. Clint always preferred to tackle new characters and stories, so outside of theDollarstrilogy or hisEvery Which Way… duology, he largely avoided reprising the same part. The key exception is theDirty Harrymovies, where Eastwood played San Francisco detective “Dirty” Harry Callahan a grand total of five times.
The original 1971 thriller was both hugely successfulandcontroversial, with its story of a cop who takes the law into his own hands to stop a vicious serial killer. The first sequel,Magnum Force,dealt with the vigilante theme head on when Harry faced off with a squad of murderous cops, and the series became a reliable one for Clint throughout the 1970s and 1980s. After the final entry, a rumoredDirty Harry 6didn’t happendespite audience interest in one final ride. Even so,Dirty Harry is still the character Clint is most closely associated with.
Dirty Harry Sequel The Enforcer Predicted Michael Bay’s The Rock
The Enforcer took Harry to Alcatraz years before Michael Bay’s best movie
The thirdDirty HarrymisadventureThe Enforcersaw the detective and his new partner Kate Moore (Tyne Daly) chasing down a militant group dubbed the People’s Revolutionary Strike Force. Much of the sequel is spent with Harry learning to work alongside a female partner, with all the required shootouts and foot chases around iconic San Francisco landmarks.The Enforcer’sfinale takes Harry and Moore to Alcatraz Prison to take down the PRSF, who lay siege to the islandand are holding the Mayor hostage.
The Alcatraz siege is the standout setpiece of the film, andThe Enforcerplays like a prototype version of Michael Bay’sThe Rock.Michael Bay’s 1996 epic saw a team of rogue Marines taking over Alcatraz with nerve gas rockets, and it was up to Sean Connery’s former prisoner and Nic Cage’s dorky chemical weapons specialist to save the day. Needless to say,The Rockfeatures more explosions, gunfights, and slo-mo shots than allDirty Harrymovies combined. Even so, the rough skeleton of the Bay film is still present inThe Enforcer.
The Rock Does A Far Better Job With The Alcatraz Siege Premise
Michael Bay’s second movie fleshes out The Enforcer’s concept to the (super)max
The Enforcer’sfinal setpiece is the highlight, and features one of the saga’s trademark downbeat endings; the Mayor may have been saved, but it came at a high cost that does little for Harry’s faith in the system. Action movies were very different in the 1970s, so the finale is more grounded and lacks the bombast that Bay would bring to the idea. The Alcatraz sequence has Harry and Kate running around different parts of the prison and occasionally shooting members of the PRSF before Callahan blasts their leader with a rocket launcher.
Michael Bay’sThe Rockmakes Alcatraz itself a character, and a location that both helps and hinders its heroes.
The Rockis essentiallyDie Hardon Alcatraz, and Bay’s second feature milks the premise for all it can. It might be the bestMichael Bay movie, with the film featuring great performances (with a special shout out to Ed Harris' complex villain), action setpieces and dialogue. The story also allows Connery’s Mason and Cage’s Goodspeed to explore the prison in full, moving from the cell blocks to the sewers and they even get to go on a mine cart ride.
The Enforcer’suse of the famous prison made for an atmospheric (and symbolic) place for the ending to take place, but it’s ultimately a backdrop.The Rockmakes Alcatraz itself a character, and a location that both helps and hinders its heroes.Clint was obviously taken with the island and its history, since three years later he starred inEscape from Alcatraz, a thriller based on a real-life 1962 escape attempt.
The Enforcer Also Predicted A Groundbreaking Cop Show
Would Cagney & Lacey exist without The Enforcer’s Kate Moore?
The idea of pairing Harry with a female partner was a big part of the hook forThe Enforcer, though co-star Tyne Daly passed on the role multiple times. Daly didn’t like how meek her character Moore was written, but Eastwood convinced her to take the role by giving her creative input.Tyne Daly’s Moore is the best part ofThe Enforcer, who is a total rookie but after an intensely frosty period, Moore and Callahan come to respect each other.
Every Dirty Harry Partner (& Who Survived Their Films)
Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry had many partners throughout the movie franchise, and here’s how many of them managed to survive their outings.
Even critics who didn’t likeThe Enforcer- of which there were many - had to admit Daly’s performance was a real highlight. It was also a rare example of a movie with a strong female detective character during this era, andTyne Daly’s role inThe Enforcerno doubt influenced her casting inCagney & Laceya few years later. This groundbreaking series was originally pitched as a buddy movie featuring two female leads but was later reworked into a CBS series.
Cagney & Laceywas in danger of cancelation a few times during its early seasons, but there was no other series like it on air at that time. It helped that Daly shared great chemistry with co-star Sharon Gless, with the show now being considered a TV classic.It’s easy to trace Daly’s evolution fromThe Enforcer’sKate to her lead role onCagney & Lacey, with both involving female detectives doing their jobs while having to push past the conscious or unconscious chauvinism of the men they work with.
Loretta Swit played Cagney in theCagney & Laceypilot, but CBS refused to release her from herMASHcontract to play the role in the resulting series.
The Enforcer Was Supposed To End The Dirty Harry Franchise
Dirty Harry’s return made Clint Eastwood’s day
The Enforcerwas intended to cap off theDirty Harryfranchise as a trilogyof films. During this era in Hollywood, franchises were still relatively rare, though they were cropping up with increasing frequency. The likes of thePlanet of the ApesorAirportseries proved there was money to be made in follow-ups, but Eastwood seemed satisfiedThe Enforcerwould be Harry’s last time wielding a .44 Magnum onscreen.
1971
$36 million
1973
$44.6 million
1976
$46.2 million
1983
$67.6 million
1988
Buddy Van Horn
$37.9 million
His return for 1983’sSudden Impactwas reportedly the result of Warner Bros polling audiences about characters they wanted to see back on the big screen. There was an overwhelming call for Eastwood to make anotherDirty Harry,so the star soon made a deal to star in and directSudden Impact.This fourthDirty Harryis most famous for its incredible catchphrase, in which Eastwood’s detective points his magnum at a thief and states “Go ahead, make my day.”
Sudden Impactbecame the highest-grossing of the entire series, despite arguably being the bleakest. Clint returned one final time five years later forThe Dead Pool, which proved to be the lowest-grossing. Warners have wisely never opted to reboot the property (though Dwayne “The Rock” Johnsonwas rumored for a remake during the early 2000s), since it would be near impossible to replace Clint. UnlikeThe Enforceror most of the otherDirty Harryfilms, at leastThe Dead Poolis nice enough to let his latest partner survive.
Clint Eastwood briefly reprised his role as Dirty Harry in the music video for The Enforcers' tie-in track “Sudden Impact.”
The Enforcer
Cast
The Enforcer is the third installment in the Dirty Harry series, featuring Clint Eastwood as Inspector Harry Callahan. Released in 1976, the film follows Callahan as he partners with a new female inspector, Kate Moore, played by Tyne Daly, in an effort to thwart a terrorist group threatening San Francisco. Directed by James Fargo, the film continues to explore themes of justice and law enforcement within the context of 1970s urban crime.
