One great thing about 70's crime dramas is they were basically realistic. Often, vigilante types are more criminal than the people they go after, as evidenced in this Dirty Harry installment.
Vigilantism makes a perfect smoke screen for truly dangerous people. They are not all sane like Dirty Harry is.
"Dark Night of the Scarecrow" also points this out clearly.
"I had to rescue a burning baby. See, I got burning baby all over me."
- CHEECH
Yes they were. They murdered INNOCENT witnesses, good COPS, and CRIMINALS. They took things way too far. Harry went too far murdering his boss.
shareWhat about a Dirty harry/Death Wish crossover? A story where harry callahan and Paul Kersey team up together? In fact one of the actors who plays a thug in death Wish 2 also plays a thug in Sudden Impact, so it could be perceived that obviously this is the same character, who survived being dumped in the water by harry in Sudden Impact and later went on to rape Kersey's housekeeper in Death wish 2. I think it could be a great idea. Eastwood and bronson appeared in an episode of rawhide together playing rivals (though in reality I understand that they became good friends). bronson was offered a role in all of the man with no name movies but refused all the offers, because with the the first two dollars scripts he thought were just crap, and for the good, the bad and the ugly he was committed to the dirty dozen. He finally accepted a role in a non-eastwood spaghetti western (ironically eastwood himself turned down that one!). rawhide was the only time they acted together which is a shame.
shareHarry went too far murdering his boss. I haven't seen the movie in a while, but wasn't that more or less self defense as his boss was going to frame Harry.
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I never thought of it as murder, growing up with this film. He was killing a bad guy.
But actually, Harry did kill Briggs at a moment when Briggs no longer posed a threat to Harry's life.
There would've been plenty of evidence tying Briggs and the rookies to the murders, so the notion of proactive self-defense doesn't fly.
Still, it "feels" right to me even now, almost 50 years later.
I think it's primarily because Harry sets the bomb before Briggs launches into his "evil plan monologue." At that point, Harry legitimately doesn't know whether Briggs will kill him or not, or even drive away or not, so triggering the bomb is just a failsafe to ensure the bad guy dies with him.
After that, he just clams up and lets the bad guy die at the hands of his own bomb.
So yeah, it's murder. But morally justifiable if not strictly legal.
I'm still OK with it.
Harry sets the bomb timer before getting out of the car because he believes, as do we, that Briggs intends to shoot him. Once Briggs surprises by telling Harry he intends to prosecute him instead, Harry could have said, “That bomb is about to blow — get out of the car!” but the he’d still risk getting shot. When you point a loaded gun at someone and make threats, unless you disarm you’re fair game. Self-defense either way.
That car was a rattletrap pile, yes. But shouldn’t Briggs still have been able to hear the TICK … TICK … TICK of that mechanical stopwatch?
Good point
Harry doesn't know, for SURE, that Briggs is NOT going to shoot him until Briggs drives away.
At which point it's of course too late to warn Briggs
I don't mind a responsible vigilante who carefully only takes out bad guys, with no collateral damage. Especially today, when cops won't or aren't allowed to do it and DAs go easy on criminals. Every time a bad guy is removed, the world becomes a safer, nicer place. Screw bad guys.
shareAnd that is the only problem... Nothing more boring than a responsible, careful vigilante. Therefore the vigilantes we love would be a nightmare in real life, with missed shots bringing down innocent bystanders even if they always knew exactly who the truly evil bad guy was. Do they go by: The preponderance of the evidence. OR Beyond a reasonable doubt. OR Absolute proof (And there we are likely back to the responsible, careful dude).
Gotta say that I'm not for vigilantism, as long as we still have a police force that is willing to engage and not just show up to take lab samples after the fact.
That said, it doesn't break my heart when a vigilante takes down a POS that the court system won't deal with.