Page 93 - Alternative Europe Eurotrash and Exploitation Cinema Since 1945

Detective Frank Bullitt with a controlled no-nonsense attitude. And, where day-to-day existence
relies upon taking a certain amount of crap, most men would like to think they have the cool control
of Frank Bullitt even when real life says differently. In the later film The French Connection, Gene
Hackman played detective Jimmy 'Popeye' Doyle with a volatile realism in direct opposition to
Bullitt's collected cool. In fact, it is Doyle - not Bullitt - who exemplifies the archetypal outlaw cop
that is now providing a basis for cinematic law enforcers all the way up to Joe Carnahan's Narc (2002)
and Ron Shelton's Dark Blue (2003).
Based on a real New York City detective, Hackman's portrayal of cop as angry everyman was
simply easier to relate to than Bullitt - Doyle was paunchy, foul-mouthed, dishevelled and mercilessly
under the thumb of his superiors. Within the system, Doyle was a loose cannon, breaking as many
rules as necessary to get the job done. Doyle's mission was not based on busting law-breakers because
they were breaking the law - his mission was based on vendetta. Doyle took his work personally.
Watching Doyle's explosive personality is a cathartic experience - a caustic release of anger rather than
an internalisation of daily frustrations.
However, the most influential and iconic cop who refused to play by anybody's rules but his own
actually burst onto the scene before The French Connection. Don Siegel's Dirty Harry - a film that
portrays loner cop as combustible human being and saint - set the standard for cop films not only in
the USA but around the world. And it is easy to see why. Harry Callahan's mission is based on one
thing alone - justice.
In her 1971 review of Dirty Harry, New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael stated as much:

Harry Callahan is not a Popeye - porkpie-hatted, and lewd and boorish. He's soft-spoken
Clint Eastwood - six feet four of lean, tough saint, blue-eyed and shaggy-haired, with a
rugged creased, careworn face that occasionally breaks into a mischief-filled Shirley MacLaine
grin. He's the best there is - a Camelot cop, courageous and incorruptible, and the protector
of women and children. Or at least he would be, if the law allowed him to be. But the law
coddles criminals; it gives them legal rights that cripple the police. And so the only way that
Dirty Harry - the dedicated trouble-shooter who gets the dirtiest assignments - can protect
the women and children is to disobey orders.4

Dirty Harry struck a chord so deeply that the film spawned four sequels - Magnum Force (1973), The
Enforcer (1976), Sudden Impact (1983) and The Dead Pool (1988).
It was Magnum Force that transformed the rogue cop's modus operandi into a fetishist worship of
Callahan's weapon: the .44 Magnum. This in turn became a symbol for impotent man's rage against
the impenetrable 'system'. Whether the system is of the law or of the workplace or home. No doubt,
the .44 Magnum was Callahan's signature in Dirty Harry, but in Magnum Force, the gun was laboured
on, doted upon, lovingly shot from all angles to almost pornographic excess, as if Callahan was proud
of this John Holmesian appendage. Even though 'a man's got to know his limitations', Callahan was
all too happy explaining that his .44 Magnum 'is the most powerful handgun in the world and can
blow your head clean off, thereby alleviating said limitations. Also Callahan's hatred of the 'system'
is something he has to stick with 'until something better comes along'.

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