Gunning Their Way To Glory

Violence is a given in the world of "Dirty Harry" Callahan, and it permeates every frame of Sudden Impact, the fourth, darkest and most ambitious of Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry series.  Once again Harry is the rabidly out-of-step San Francisco avenger cop with a messy urge to take the law into his own hands.  As he single-handedly rids the mean streets of San Francisco of its assorted vermin, another avenger is working outside the law, a woman with a gun seeking out the men who brutally raped her and her sister 10 years earlier.  As played by Sondra Locke, done up to resemble Veronica Lake, she's an icon out of the `40's film noir.  What will happen when Dirty Harry, put on the murder case, discovers that the killer he's looking for has more than a little in common with himself- and that he's half in love with her before he discovers she's his prey?  There's an intriguing, and morally complex, issue at play here, and its resolution makes one wonder where Eastwood could take Dirty Harry next- if anywhere.  -David Ansen

Original text appeared in Newsweek, Dec. 12, 1983