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The fourth installment of the Dirty Harry pentalogy brings the character into the 80s. Luckily for him nothing much has changed and a movie about a trigger happy cop enforcing some police brutality on scumbags was still considered politically correct back then. After all these years Harry is still working homicide and occasionally taking justice in his own hands. Even the threats of assigning him to traffic are still uttered by his superiors. Not that Harry really cares as in the first act we see him take out a couple of robbers holding up his regular cafeteria, giving a crime boss a heart attack at his daughter’s wedding by convincing him he has solid evidence against him and Harry gets in several shoot outs. It takes four incidents and an out-of-town lead on a case he is working to make him skip town for a couple of weeks. That’s Harry; not even a hit-squad scares him.
The case he is working is that of a man found shot twice in his car. One in the head, the other in the nuts. A strange element for what seems to be an execution. A similar death in the small town of San Paulo sends him there and this is where the rest of the movie will take place. While trying to solve this case Harry apparently can’t count on the help of Chief Jannings for reasons unknown to us until the final act, but since he saved the life of a local cop he at least has one friend in the precinct. Harry also meets a blonde woman who is a professional painter and whom he starts to date, but what he doesn’t know is that this is the woman responsible for the murders. What are the odds right? There’s by the way no partner for Harry this time, but he does get a dog who has the ability to change sex between shots.
Sudden Impact is a more blunt movie than its predecessors. They have really left out any character development for Harry who’s becoming this bulletproof cartoon character. The first act becomes repetitive due to the recycling of events: Harry comes across some lawbreakers, a shoot out ensues, Harry shoots them all and Harry gets a reprimand from his superiors who want him to take a vacation. And because Harry isn’t up for vacation according to himself the next scene will have Harry come across some the next batch of people breaking the law.
His most famous quote comes from one of these scenes. During the cafeteria stick-up Harry, holding his gun pointed at a robber’s head, says the now classic line “Go ahead, make my day”. It’s a small feat that they still can make these typical Dirty Harry scenes have something memorable.
The character who does get some development is that of Jennifer Spencer, played by a cold-eyed Sandra Locke. She and her sister have been the victim of a group rape rendering her sister catatonic. Jennifer doesn’t fare much better as the rape makes her homicidal as well as an artist whose work could be described as disturbed. Several flashbacks show us how horrible that night was and create an anti-hero/vigilante the audience can identify with. This element makes Sudden Impact somewhat of a rip-off of the Death Wish franchise which also contains a rape where the victim became catatonic afterwards and someone avenged her by killing the people who raped her. Both franchises have also always contained similar political views, but with now they even have similar plots.
One typical Dirty Harry scene features a young and loud, thus obviously guilty, man is set free because all the evidence collected by Harry was without a warrant. The hoodlum is set free thanks to the liberal judge and those stupid rules. Of course Harry has another run-in with this thug and his posse as they try to set his car on fire by throwing Molotov cocktails at it during a chase. This is one of the moments the movie really shows its disdain for the judicial system: as soon as Harry doesn’t play judge, jury and executioner by himself the punks he takes off the streets are out in no time breaking the law again.
Sudden Impact doesn’t bring much new to the Dirty Harry series, other than a “villain” who isn’t actually one. This could provide this movie with some interesting themes about vigilantism and whether or not Harry should apprehend her, but the bluntness of the movie results in not only Harry being a cartoon character at this point, but also the actual villains: the rapists. Most of them are pretty much of the top and ham it up in their performance. I could never take these guys seriously and the only reason they are over the top in their sadistic nature, is because it makes it easier for the audience to the accept the cold hearted vigilantism going on. Sudden Impact would have been a more intelligent movie if it blurred those lines a bit more, and posed a question on whether this form of street justice is correct. Because it’s never as exploitative as the Death Wish movies, Sudden Impact feels a bit like a “Death Wish Light”, but with better actors, better dialogue and a bigger budget.
Sudden Impact is a step down from previous movies, mostly because it brings us more of the same old, same old. It’s still an entertaining flick but aside from that classic quote, it has nothing memorable about it that sets it apart from the previous movies.
