Magnum Force [Blu-ray] [Region Free]

Working my way through the Dirty Harry series after last watching them many years ago. This is a great sequel to the original with some well known cast members early in their careers looking very young. Good addition to the series.

Clint Eastwood is back once again, as "Dirty" Harry Callaghan, an uncompromising cop with a Magnum .45. This is considered the best sequel of the series, as Harry has to battle a new force of crime, an underground vigilante group of cops, doing the dirty jobs the courts don't want to do, and ultimately executing them. Everyone from pimps, pushers, murders and robbers are under the bright light of the vigilante cops - and even though Harry doesn't like the system, he doesn't like this either.This is a very good reprint of Magnum Force, the dark scenes in the ship are much clearer, and actually give you new scope to the film, also I've noticed a lot more background details, something that can't be bad. The audio is amazing too, master HD digital, 5.1, sounds really good on a 5.1 system, as well as the 2.1 system I have. The crisp clear sound, and the AVC video averaging at around 30mbit/sec are just sublime and make Harry look better than he did in the cinemas. You also get language tracks in French, Spanish and Italian, plus the inclusion of director commentary - which is all very good.Extras come in the form of a 30 minute look at politics in Dirty Harry, which includes all the stars from the films, including Hal Holbrook, also known as Briggs, and Scorpio (Andrew Robinson) - so it's a pretty good round up of the series. You also get the original 1973 feature about Magnum Force, which lasts around 8 minutes. For those who love trailers there's all 5 here too.This is a good blu-ray in my opinion, but I've been expecting a good re-encode of Dirty Harry, and have to say I'm smitten with all 5 blu ray discs, and recommend them to Dirty Harry fans, as they really show why Dirty Harry was a great series of films - entertaining and have a serious point at the same time. In my opinion this is better than the DVD - but that's mainly because of the quality of the whole experience on blu-ray disk.Get this if you love Dirty Harry films.

With a posse of maverick traffic cops dishing out vigilante justice on the streets of San Francisco, Inspector Harry Callahan, previously not adverse to the `direct' approach, is transferred from a stakeout squad back to the Homicide division, and sets about tracking down those responsible...Obviously conceived as a purely commercial proposition, designed to capitalise on the box-office success of the original Dirty Harry (1971), the first sequel to Don Siegel's seminal crime flick, 1973's Magnum Force, is less a plain follow-up, and more of a deconstruction and comment on both the character of .44 Magnum-packing super-cop Harry Callahan, and the perceived `fascist' attitude of the original movie. However, this doesn't alter the unfortunate fact that as an action thriller, the film is a curiously muddled and flabby affair.With the original movie accused of `fascism' by many critics, Eastwood and his collaborators (most notably screenwriters John Milius and Michael Cimino) here set out to show the naysayers exactly what true vigilante justice is all about, and how the character of Harry Callahan could not be tarred with the same brush as the killers. Unfortunately, to do this, the filmmakers have had to `soften' the character of Callahan to such an extent that he is clearly not the same granite-faced, borderline psychopath of the first film. Working far more easily with his new black partner than he managed with the Mexican one the first time around, sufficiently recovered from the death of his wife to engage in casual sex with a female neighbour (an Asian one, at that), and enjoying a cosy dinner with the family of a co-worker, Callahan is a much less anti-social being, and a more recognisably `normal' cop. The various action scenes, too, show a much less ambivalent attitude towards Callahan's crime-fighting methods; whereas in the first film, his disturbingly sadistic `I know what you're thinking...' speech had more liberal viewers squirming in their seats, here he takes no such perverse pleasure in punishing wrong-doers. Of course, it doesn't help that the opening plane hi-jack sequence is a pale shadow of the bank robbery scene that kicked off the first film; it's a hopelessly contrived, semi-comic vignette that makes Callahan out to be a reckless cowboy who unhesitatingly opens fire on a villain in a plane packed with innocent civilians, and it's also unnecessary padding in a film that runs a swollen 124 minutes.However, despite the somewhat mediocre direction by Ted Post (no Siegel, that's for sure) and unfocused editing (a full hour has passed before Harry even starts investigating the murders), the film is still the best of the Dirty Harry sequels by a considerable distance. Many writers have asked exactly why Callahan is back on the job after chucking his badge away at the end of the first movie, as we are given no clue; but does it matter? Nobody ever asks why 'Popeye' Doyle is still after Charnier in French Connection II, despite the caption at the end of the first film telling us he was `transferred out of narcotics and reassigned'.True, the plot doesn't always make a great deal of sense (if the Albert Popwell character is `just a pimp' as the Chief of Detectives says, then why did the vigilantes even bother wiping him out? Everyone else they execute are big-league organised crime figures), but it's a decent 1970s cop movie; with a more focused director than Post, it could have equalled the original. And is that an unbilled James Woods as the getaway driver in the convenience store hold-up scene?

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Wanted to return to this 1973 Eastwood classic for a few reason the longest Dirty Harry picture to be made and edited by regular editor ferris Webster v different politically to the first and later sequel the action centric cinematography is note worthy and his cinematographer would later shoot the troubled EAger Sanction a busy yr of output for EAstwood this being 1 of 3 in 1973.

I've had the DVD for a long time and now, the Blu-ray was a reasonable price. This is by far, the best of the soiled Harry. It no longer can be called Dirty Harry, as it is not politically correct. It implies something negative about such a shining star.What makes it the best of the lot, is the writing and direction - which could have easily made any lead look good. If you listen to some of the classic lines, you will realize just how poorly they are performed. None the less, the film itself survives and is memorable.The Blu-ray version gives greater picture detail and better sound i.e., the gun shots blow you away. I mention the latter only because it is that sort of thing that appeals to modern viewers rather than the dialogue. How can you hear what's said when your always on the phone?

David Soul plays bad guy

Glad I was able to buy it