Post by ronnierocketago on Apr 28, 2009 3:03:43 GMT
MAGNUM FORCE (1973) - ***1/2
"A man's got to know his limitations."[/i][/size]
The new MAGNUM FORCE DVD, released as part of the Dirty Harry Anthology boxset, is perhaps worth buying if just for John Milius' audio commentary alone. You might know him as the Oscar-nominated scriptwriter of APOCALYPSE NOW, or the gung-ho macho director of the fantasy masterpiece CONAN THE BARBARIAN and Communist invasion picture RED DAWN, or the designer of the UFC ring, or the inspiration for John Goodman's character in THE BIG LEBOWSKI. If none of the above, just know at least that early in his Hollywood career he caught a major break by script doctoring without credit a little police procedural called DIRTY HARRY and penning immortal Clint Eastwood line involving a .44 Magnum pistol and some not-so-lucky "punk." Apparently impressed by a guy (and fellow Republican) who can type up some awesome dialogue for him to quip, Eastwood hired Milius to draft the highly-anticipated sequel MAGNUM FORCE, which ended up making even more money than DIRTY HARRY.
For you kids to understand, the DIRTY HARRY series was for the 1970s like those BOURNE movies are for this decade. That is an incredibly popular franchise built around an action hero that everyone in Hollywood ripped-off who represented for a certain population niche a fantasy response against what they perceived to be the ill-wronged political status quo. For everyone else, it was good kick-ass popcorn fun with thrills and laughs. The obvious difference is that Jason Bourne was a progressive fighter against Bush America while "Dirty" Harry Callahan policed the hippie 1960s. Hell you thought it was just mere coincidence that Eastwood's character was stationed in San Francisco?
Milius has a naughty reputation as a right-wing/gun-loving (probably even insane) filmmaker, which is ironic considering that his MAGNUM FORCE (the best of those HARRY sequels) was an thematic counter-argument against the same disgruntled Wallace/Nixon-following white guys who seriously bought into the conservative politics of DIRTY HARRY. Indeed there is a great scene in FORCE where Detective Harry Callahan is confronted by the menacing vigilante stormtrooper-esque cops (the sorts inspired by DIRTY) who try to recruit him, and he replies coldly: "I'm afraid you've misjudged me."[/i] I mean FORCE's opening credits isn't exactly subtle about its approach, with the most powerful handfun in the world aimed at you the viewer, now the unlucky punk. Plus you get some great Lalo Schifrin 70s music.
FORCE is rather clever manipulation though in how Milius sets up these rogue traffic cops for audiences initially to cheer for them. You have a corrupt labor boss who gets acquitted for murdering a whole family out of some silly technicality, and his whole entourage gets mowed down with machine gun fire. Later they lay waste to a mob pool party and a nude drug kingpin in the midst of his coke orgy. Better yet, when you have a rather lengthy gruesome sequence where a black pimp hunts down his prostitute holding out money on him, and he calmly kills her by pouring Draino down her throat. What a cold-blooded bastard, he deserved to die. See?
Indeed these are the sort of cops you would think Dirty Harry should be hanging around with, possibly even joining in their little missions. I mean you have an early scene where Eastwood inn disguise boards a hijacked airplane and with trigger-ease dispatches the terrorists. No Guantanamo for them. Or how he greets gangsters he's trailing:
I dug how FORCE has Eastwood begrudgingly stands up to defend the system he so utterly despises, without every betraying his character's essence and it feels genuine. He's no liberal, for he's rather sympathetic to these cops' misdeeds (especially after the Draino murder), but for him there is a rather clear line between brutal law-stretching enforcer and lethal law-breaking executioner. Once those kids cross that boundary by killing an innocent witness, Dirty Harry is gonna stop those mother fuckers. As he put it best: "I hate the goddamn system, but until someone comes along with changes that make sense, I'll stick with it."[/i]
Milius in that commentary is rather damn proud of his and Eastwood's exploring the flipside of the vigilante justice coin, how FORCE was a rare sequel that questioned the original film's premise rather than simply giving more of the same with a bigger bang. I was actually kinda surprised with his polite disdain for the LETHAL WEAPON series, considering how WEAPON scripter Black (like many of his generation) were inspired by DIRTY HARRY. I can't blame Milius considering nearly every cop picture after HARRY has a maverick shred-the-rule-book/on-the-edge hero stuck with a squeaky clean partner. Plus LETHAL WEAPON 3 and 4 sucked. He must feel like totally ripped off.
A great detail in FORCE is how Eastwood very suspicious early and has an idea of who is behind these murders, but keeps his mouth shut as he accumulates evidence and shit. A genius Milius scene is Eastwood at the police gun tournament, and tricking those traffic cops into letting him fire one of their pistols at the village mock-up, and he later that night comes back to the range and collects those bullets to study in ballistics. You know, actual smart police work. This Mr. Callahan is full of surprises.
Also pretty good is the villain in the legendary Hal Holbrook, easily the best-acting baddie in that whole franchise. I know this will sound rather obvious, but I've noticed now Holbrook in the 1970s and 80s worked alot of hero/baddie roles in these liberal-message movies whatever it be ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN (the press triumphs over criminal President), CAPRICORN ONE (truth defeats lies), THE STAR CHAMBER (Courts of justice over vigilantism), etc. Hell even that recent Sean Penn production INTO THE WILD. He's always great, and somehow made Dirty Harry come off as the more sane and rational of the two regarding law enforcement in their final confrontations. That's no small feat.
But Milius does live up to his nutjob charcter in his track by talking of how all the criminals eliminated deserved to die, even the topless cavorting women at the pool party. He even wondered why there was no motorcycle death squads for those CEOs. Then again, this the same guy who wanted Rush Limbaugh "drawn and quartered" for defending those assholes on Wall Street getting bailed out. Of course he also thinks the American Army should invade Mexico and smash the drug cartels down there. I just like how he randomly goes off the rails at times on the commentary, maybe to deliberately needle liberals, and it's a laugh riot. His best story is when pitching FORCE, he only presented Eastwood the opening sequence. Eastwood asks why he stopped, and Milius goes: "Clint, that's all you're gonna get for free."[/i]
Hell, I even wonder now why Eastwood never contracted Milius to direct a DIRTY HARRY feature. The guy knows his firearms, lecturing on how FORCE gets this gun and that application wrong. He shot the excellent CONAN so he's got the directorial goods. Just look at that scene where Eastwood deals with grocery robbers, with police having built a stake-out station at the store. I thought this was phoney nonsense, until Milius recounts how he was inspired by similar set-ups launched by Los Angeles cops. He would have been highly motivated for a HARRY flick.
Plus, I'm pretty certain his action scenes wouldn't have come off as bland and anti-climatic as director Ted Post, who also shot the bland Eastwood feature HANG'EM HIGH. There is just something missing in the juice with those moments. Though I've read about how apparently Eastwood and 2nd unit director Buddy Van Horn actually directed FORCE, but I don't know if this is true. Wouldn't surprise me cosnidering Eastwood's numerous directorial credits, and Van Horn himself later helmed Eastwood vehicles like ANY WHICH WAY YOU CAN (that monkey movie) and THE DEAD POOL.
With my recent exploration of Michael Cimino's filmography, I wished the DVD could have shared details of how fellow FORCE scriptwriter Cimino contributed, whatever it be interview or even him sliced onto Milius' track. Cimino himself does some rather good tracks worth listening too (as YEAR OF THE DRAGON proved). It should be noted that Cimino's rewriting supposedly impressed Ole Squint Eye, who on a mere spec script agreed to star in Cimino's directorial debut THUNDERBOLT AND LIGHTFOOT, which of course opened up Cimino's path to THE DEER HUNTER.
Of course afterwards Cimino did HEAVEN'S GATE, where Cimino should have known that great Milius lesson from MAGNUM FORCE: