DIRTY HARRY VI THE DEATH OF HARRY CALLAGHAN, THE HUNTDOWN
DIRTY HARRY VI THE DEATH OF HARRY CALLAGHAN, THE HUNTDOWN
A retired Harry Callaghan drives back into and returns to San Fransisco afraid that he is dying. Not afraid he'll be killed, but afraid he's dying, which is the last thing we anticipated. It is 2016: He has outlived his century & usefullness. A Doctor in the next state has given him the bad news and now he wants to hear it from the lips of a san fransisco doctor, who nursed him back to health after a violent shoot out twenty years ago. And so he drives, Harry Callaghan, into San Fransisco to which the City.The pain is way down deep in his back the doctor comes out with it: cancer. Two months to live, six weeks, maybe less. In the meantime he can do what he wants. After a while he won't feel like doing much.
In his time, Harry Callaghan shot a lot of men dead. His arrival in San Fransisco immediately becomes news. The Doctor steers him over to a boarding house run by Jane Tennison, who shows him a room. It'll do fine. Harry settles down to die. But all these gunfighters had the same problem: People weren't content to let them die in bed, because they made too good a trophy.
So there is a tricky dilemma: To die with some measure of dignity, and to avoid being shot in the meantime. As the film opens, Harry has 14 days. You will be surprised with what gentleness and humanity he lives them, before the inevitable gunfire at the end.
The movie isn't a bit sentimental. Everybody in town wants the bastard Harry Callaghan dead, except for June Tennison and her daughter, Gillian. Even the Doctor, who knows what people can go through toward the end of these illnesses, stops Harry at the door and advises him point-blank not to wait around and see how things will eventually feel. The Mayor is almost cheerful at the prospect of Harry approaching end. The Undertaker offers a free funeral, free tombstone, free casket, free flowers, even two mourners thrown in at no extra charge. "You son of a bitch," Harry says, "you aim to do to me what they did with Popeye Doyle & Paul Kersey. Lay me out and parade every damn fool in the state past me at a dollar a head, half price for children, and then stuff me in a gunny sack and shovel me under." He is correct.
Still, 14 days are enough to establish the beginnings of human contact. June Tennison is appalled at first to have a killer vigilant cop as her paying guest, but an affection and respect grows up between them. Her kid, Gillian, contracts a case of hero worship even while trying to swindle Harry out of his car and 48 magnum gun. He vows to watch the Sopranos from beginning to the end before he dies. He sends his clothes out to the cleaners. And he challenges 12 old San Fransisco enemies to meet him in the old San Fransisco police station Sunday at midnight. These are 12 enemies who are up for murder, serial killing, rape, peadophelia, robbery, bombings, hostage taking, terrorist attacks, cannabalism, soddomy, gang rape, and Child killing!
In the process as a gang attacks the house raping and then trying to kill both June and Gillian Tennison hekills them to and protects the 2 raped girls!
These are 12 enemies who are up for murder, serial killing, rape, peadophelia, robbery, bombings, hostage taking, terrorist attacks, cannabalism, soddomy, gang rape, and Child killing!We understand his reasoning & theirs as at some point they crossed Harry and he sent them to Alcatraz. And the movie's final scene, in which Gillian Tennuison symbolically steps into Harry's boots, after Harry and June are shot dead before her own death after a the lethal shoot out, Harrys folklore lives on he dies like he lives! It is neat. Harry probably has to end along these lines with confrontations and gunfire and heroism, but Harry Callaghan will be remembered for the quieter scenes that came before.