Magnum Force (1973)

Director: Ted Post

Cast: Clint Eastwood, Hal Holbrook, Mitchell Ryan, David Soul

Have I Seen it Before: Never.

Did I Like It: First of all, in my review of Dirty Harry (1971) I noted that since Harry (Eastwood) spent the final moments of that film throwing his badge into the water, the opening minutes of this film pretty much had to have him wading into the water to go retrieve it.

No such luck. By all rights I should get over that little oversight, but thematically it’s a little hard to account for Callahan’s utter—and arguably justifiable—disgust with the system in the context of this movie. Not to spoil the plot of a fifty year old movie, but when it becomes clear that the real bad guys in this film are forces within the San Francisco Police Department*, Callahan has to throw away a quick line about how much he still hates the system, but has to live with it until it changes.

It’s an awkward—and unfortunately load-bearing—moment in an otherwise skillfully constructed thriller. Harry is a hero that I’m increasingly less dubious about headlining a multi-movie franchise. Those shots that are going to be the first up in obituary reels for Eastwood make Callahan seem like the kind of cop one hopes to not meet in a darkened alley, or in bright daylight, or really anywhere. The truth, though, is that Callahan might be a grump, but he is a decent man. He’s not interested in hurting anybody that hasn’t already gone out of their way to hurt other people. He’d even like to gently stop somebody who might hurt somebody from indulging in their worst impulses. He doesn’t kick ass when McCoy (Ryan) starts betraying his meltdown. He tries to talk him into hanging it up before something terrible happens. He doesn’t even sleep with McCoy’s wife, when the runway was absolutely clear. Are all cops bastards? I’ll leave that for other people to decide, but I would at least submit that Dirty Harry Callahan is at least a bastard for the angels.

*An odd paradox in this genre of kick-ass guys with guns starring guys who would be perfectly welcome at the Republican National Convention: They are weirdly, and pointedly, anti-police, or at least eager to admit that police corruption exists and is inherently difficult to route out. I’m surprised that the left haven’t adopted both this film and First Blood (1982) as their own.

Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995)

Director: Joe Chappelle

Cast: Donald Pleasance, Paul “Stephen” Rudd*, Marianne Hagan, Mitchell Ryan

Have I Seen it Before: It came out at one of those moments in my life—the age of 11—when I was so into the series, but between the one-two punch of the MPAA and over-protective parents, I was stymied. I even remember watching—with my heart pounding—the first few minutes of a pay-per-view airing of the film before things went all staticky.

Did I Like It: I eventually watched the whole thing. It is truly amazing how kids imagining what horror movies might be like are infinitely more frightening than what many slapdash sequels end up being.

Speaking of endings, I am struggling to come up with a movie that has a more incomprehensible ending than what we are subjected to here. I’m not talking about a choice that beggars any understanding, that at least could be accepted if not celebrated. I don’t think the ending for Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1983) particularly works, but it definitely follows from the rest of the film. Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987) ran out of money and was knowingly released by the studio despite its toxic faults, but at least that movie ended with an upbeat, rousing quality (and stole the closing shot of Superman (1978)). Here, Donald Pleasance says goodbye to the film series which gave his career new life in his twilight years, and to the planet Earth itself, and disappears amid a hodgepodge of jump cuts and incomprehensible sound samples. Had this movie kept things together even minimally, we may not have needed to be rebooted multiple times in this series. Which actually ended up giving us something great far down the line.

Yes, I’ve seen the fabled producer’s cut, and the result is only marginally better, don’t let superfans of the series try to tell you any different. If a film is rotten at its core, there’s no number of alternate cuts which will fix matters.

Although it does start to shed light on just how Michael Myers managed to do all of the things he did in earlier films, despite spending his formative years in Smiths Grove. And the mask… well, the mask has certainly looked worse, so the film does have that going for it.

*Yes, that one. Sort of endearing that the series could still produce a verifiable movie star after all this time… Sure, most people would argue Clueless (1995) was our introduction to him, I think that he was able to pull off any kind of a performance in a movie like this, that was far more indicative of his future stardom than being perfectly charming in an otherwise charming movie.

Lethal Weapon (1987)

Director: Richard Donner

Cast: Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Mitchell Ryan, Gary Busey

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure.

Did I Like It: Let’s reckon with a strange question before I get into any qualities of the movie. Why is there so much sturm und drang as to whether or not Die Hard (1988) is a Christmas movie (it, is by the way, but that’s a discussion for another review), when this movie gets hardly a peep?

I wonder if it is mostly that by the time that these silly movie debates held on the internet became a thing, Mel Gibson as one of the all-time leading men had firmly become a thing of the past.

And that’s the thing I’m most struck by here. We’re supposed to like Mel Gibson. Feel sorry for him. Even with this being the ur of the modern buddy action movie, it’s hard to separate Mel Gibson the man from Martin Riggs the character. All of that manic energy will soon be harnessed into something pretty ugly. Makes it difficult to have a good time, and isn’t that the point of a movie like Lethal Weapon?

I was struck recently by reading that Richard Donner’s first choice for Riggs was his Superman (1978) discovery, Christopher Reeve. I have a hard time imagining that, as even when Reeve played slightly unhinged and despicable, he had a gentleness that couldn’t fully be erased. That he went ahead and made Superman IV - The Quest for Peace (1987) was probably the wrong move for him, but I probably would have been able to more fully dwell on the action, the chemistry between Riggs and Murtaugh, and Donner’s direction.

Now, it all feels a bit too weird for words. No one knows the fate of the long-threatened Lethal Finale now that Donner has passed on, but I can’t help but imagine that one being really weird.