Sudden Impact (1983)

Director: Clint Eastwood

Cast: Clint Eastwood, Sondra Locke, Pat Hingle, Bradford Dillman

Have I Seen it Before: Nope.

Did I Like It: I go into this one not with hype in my head, but a strange amount of comfort with Harry Callahan and his world. What’s more, Eastwood directs here for the only time in the series. Who knows Callahan and his strange mix of gruff recalcitrance and underlying decency better than the man who probably still is largely identified with the role?

And yes, Eastwood is probably most at ease in this film, but that makes the entire film seem distracted. Maybe he was a little too in love with Sandra Locke and decides to spend too much time focusing on her. Plenty of directors, and more than a few stars have fallen victim to the pitfalls of romantic nepotism, but Locke sleep walks through a role that feels like it at least needs to alternate between borderline-catatonic and scene-chewing manic.

Maybe it’s just that this is a down-note entry in the series between The Enforcer (1976) where Eastwood is able to be so relaxed that he actually got to be a bit funny, and The Dead Pool (1988), a weird—purely hypothetical for me at this point—pop cultural amalgamation. It’s entirely possible I’m being too hard on Sudden Impact. A series that goes five films without having any entries that aren’t willfully embarrassing is probably a treasure to behold. Star Trek couldn’t manage that feat. Maybe Dirty Harry is allowed to have an off day.

And now it’s just me and The Dead Pool. I strangely can’t wait. With it’s weird alchemy of Eastwood, Liam Neeson, Jim Carrey (before he started talking out of his ass) and the guys who voices Mario? There’s no possibility this thing will ever live up to the hype I created entirely in my head.

The Enforcer (1976)

Director: James Fargo

Cast: Clint Eastwood, Harry Guardino, Bradford Dillman, Tyne Daly

Have I Seen It Before: Never.

Did I Like It: Is it possible that Dirty Harry Callahan (Eastwood) is actually funny? I mean, this film certainly seems to think he is and Eastwood is given more one -liners and absurd situations to deal with than he’s gotten in any film that doesn’t involve a monkey. I found myself laughing out loud more than I do with an average comedy.

But if Harry were really the absolutely mean-spirited one-man war on crime that our collective pop cultural consciousness has decided he was, it would be hard to laugh with him amidst a ridiculous world.

But here’s the thing. He isn’t. He dislikes absurdity, and is apt not to participate in it, but in a city like San Francisco that is filled to the brim with the kind of people that would drive a lesser steely-eyed conservative icon to hate everyone in sight. He’s curt, sure. He’s more into doing the job as he sees it, consequences be damned.

But he’s not a fundamentally mean man, especially if you aren’t obviously committing a felony right in front of him at that very moment, doubly so if you’re in a position of authority over him. He really hates that. He gets attached to partners quite easily, in fact. Which one might forgive him for being a dick to the litany of sad sacks who get tethered to him, as they keep dropping like flies. But this doesn’t stop him from both begrudgingly respecting and eventually mourning his latest buddy, Inspector Kate Moore (Daly). This feels like the kind of opinion that will get some red hat to trebuchet me, but I think the only reason they call him Dirty Harry is because Cuddly Bear Harry wouldn’t have looked as good on a poster.

It’s entirely possible that The Enforcer will wind up being one of my favorite of the Dirty Harry films. I’m reserving judgment, as that last one has Liam Neeson and Jim Carrey running around the edges with wacky hairdos, and I wait for that with bated breath.

Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971)

Director: Don Taylor

Cast: Roddy McDowall, Kim Hunter, Bradford Dillman, Ricardo Montalbán

Have I Seen It Before: Oh, sure.

Did I Like It: First of all, and I don’t think my eventual re-watch of Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972) will turn me around on this, but as a general rule you can’t go wrong including Ricardo Montalbán in your science fiction sequel. I challenge you to find me an exception.

There’s a level at which I want to say this might even be superior to <Planet of the Apes (1968)>, and I’m not entirely sure it is insane. Certainly, this third film in the series is less iconic than anything that culminates in Charlton Heston trying to have an argument with a be-togaed French lady (shit, there I go again, spoiling the first one for you…) but even that is a subjective argument. Maybe Escape from the Planet of the Apes has some special meaning for you. What cannot be disputed is that Escape is a far cheaper film then either of its predecessors, to the point where the title almost begins to seem like a misnomer. Then again, A Trio of Apes Travel to and Attempt to Adapt to Life on the Planet of the Humans lacks a certain poetry.

Lest you think that is knock against the film, let me say without any doubt that quality is its secret strength. Right from the opening credits where we’re led to believe that cohorts of Heston’s Taylor or Franciscus’ Brent have somehow made it back to a recognizable version of terra firma, only to be greeted by two of our favorite apes from prior films (and a friend (Sal Mineo)) have somehow found their way on the other end of the franchise’s denial. A dour, foolish sort of person may look at this premise and say that the near-plausible accounting of time travel in the first two films (am I the first person to ever attach the word “plausible” to <Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970)>? Quite possibly, yes.) is flipped on its head when it is no longer a matter of time dilation, and instead a stable rift in the fabric of time which will allow travelers to travel back and forth between the simian and human ages.

What this premise does is trick—and quite masterfully so—the audience into letting their guard down. The jaunty Jerry Goldsmith score and the playful banter between Zira (Hunter) and Cornelius (McDowall) all makes you think that this is going to be “the funny one” in the series. For much of its runtime, Escape delivers on that process. We even get a delightful homage of Zira and Cornelius trying on human fashions. You are not prepared when matters become not only just as bleak as the two previous films, but heartbreaking to boot. No longer are we confronted with the massive tragedy of all of humans or apes being snuffed out in an instant, we are forced to watch the painful, tragic death of two characters we have grown quite fond of over the course of three films, and their child lives on, to start the process all over again in just about the only sci-fi headfake ending in this series to rival the first. The bleakness of this series becomes no longer an abstract, and it is all the more heartbreaking for it.