Ok so a bomb goes off in the restroom of police headquarters and Dirty Harry has a hunch who did it and Inspector Kate Moore (Tyne Daly) spots the bad guy. Of course we cannot have logic in something like this so instead of alerting every other cop in the area and cordoning off the block and doing things that would normally happen in real life (but not movie life) we get to see Dirty Harry and Moore chase after the suspect.
And this scene exemplifies the problem with The Enforcer.
It’s way too long, not all that exciting, has inappropriate poppy, jazzy music, played too much for laughs, and ends with the suspect being tackled in a church where the hip young priest berates Harry for excessive force, calling him the worst cop ever.
The other problem is even worse. Tyne Daly plays a female cop who is promoted to Inspector for no other reason than she’s a woman. It’s the mid-70s so the feminist movement was in full swing, and women were demanding to break free of the male-generated stereotypes of women. I guess the writers, Sterling Siliphant and Dean Reisner, thought they could marry one of the hot-button issues of the day with the classic police officer archetype that is Dirty Harry Callahan. But they failed miserably.
Daly’s character spent 10 years in the personnel department and has no experience with investigative work. Callahan is always asking her to stay outside while he questions suspects, or checks on an autopsy. She’s the one literallly left holding the bag while he chases a suspect across the rooftops. She’s just not a good cop.
It’s crap. The filmmakers apparently were trying to dispel stereotypes, but, instead, subtly reinforce the “women can’t hack it” stereotype. Which is a little strange given the time frame this flick was made, and that it was Eastwood who helped make it. Don’t get me wrong, Eastwood’s made some bad movies (The Rookie, anyone?), but it’s never been as blatantly insipid as this one.
The Enforcer really does play as a classic, cheesy ’70s flick; the worst kind of tv cop show. But Eastwood’s in it so you know it’s at least watchable crap.
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