Film Review: Sudden Impact (1983)

History of cinema is full of ironies, big and small. One of them is related to Dirty Harry film series. Its fourth instalment, 1983 film Sudden Impact directed by Clint Eastwood, is, at least judging by the box office and its one-liners entering vocabularies, the most popular in the series despite being the least Dirty Harry film of them all.

Clint Eastwood returns in front of camera in order to play iconic role of Inspector Harry Callahan, police detective who employs simple and effective, but often violent and destructive methods to bring some sort of law and order on the mean streets of San Francisco. The beginning shows him doing what he was doing for years – using his 0.44 Magnum revolver to deal with variety of criminal scum, ranging from small-time street robbers to assassins employed by organised crime. This, as always, creates hostility among liberal judges and his superiors who prefer gentler and kinder forms of police work. Murder of man who has been shot in genitals and head is an opportunity for Callahan’s bosses to, at least temporarily, get rid of troublesome detective. The victim had lived in nearby small town of San Paulo and Callahan is, much to his displeasure, sent there to investigate. The perpetrator of that crime, painter Jennifer Spencer (played by Sondra Locke) also comes to the San Paulo in order to settle some old scores. Ten years ago she was subjected to horrific gang rape that left her deeply traumatised and her younger sister catatonic. She begins to track and kill rapists one by one. As bodies piles up Callahan is much surprised to find local police chief Lester Jennings (played by Pat Hingle) openly hostile to the idea of him helping with the investigation. In the meantime, surviving rapists realise what is going on and Mick (played by Paul Drake), their former leader, recruits small group of thugs to eliminate Spencer and anyone who might interfere, including the over-inquisitive policeman from San Francisco.

Sudden Impact began as generic rape and revenge film intended for Sondra Locke, who had been Eastwood’s long-time on-screen and romantic partner in real life. The film wasn’t supposed to have anything with character of Dirty Harry but that changed after Eastwood, faced with series of commercial disappointments in previous few years, decided to return to his iconic role in order to maintain his stellar status. The result is a script by Joseph Stinson that looks like not very successful amalgamation of two different plots. Despite that, Sudden Impact won the audience, mostly thanks to the first part that takes part in San Francisco and features Callahan with his brand of street justice and delivers the famous line “Go ahead, make my day”, which would later become one of the most popular in history of cinema. When the plot switches to quiet small town, it loses much of a steam, because now Callahan, instead of omni-present crime in dense urban jungle, has to deal with petty local intrigues and villains who look like minor league compared to vicious psychopaths and efficient killers Callahan had to deal with in previous three films. The story about rape and revenge looks poignant thanks to superb acting by Locke and occasionally deals with issues of forgiveness, but in the end it plays second fiddle to the audience’s need to see Callahan blow bad people away. This inevitably leads to Spencer and Callahan becoming allies and even lovers, and in the end this results with arguably the most controversial of all endings in the series. In previous films, Callahan, for all his violent and destructive methods, remained within the confines of the law; in this film he crosses that line and becomes exactly the vigilante he had been accused by critics portraying him as fascist. In case of Sudden Impact, however, there was relatively little screaming by the critics, mostly because Callahan took side of victimised woman and partly because vigilantism as solution for rampant crime was becoming increasingly popular in Reagan’s America.

Despite its questionable content, Sudden Impact is solid piece of entertainment. Eastwood directs with great confidence, especially during action scenes. The film is, however, slightly overlong, mostly because some of the scenes and characters are unnecessary. One of the examples is Albert Popwell, character actor who appeared in previous three films playing different roles; here he plays Horace King, Callahan’s fellow detective and friend whose only purpose is to provide Callahan with a pet dog and thus, presumably, make him more human and likeable. The character appears briefly before getting killed a way that would make his appearance a waste of talent. Other actors, like always dependable Pat Hingle as police chief with a dirty secret, fare little better. Sudden Impact is far from the best Dirty Harry film, but it could nevertheless recommended to the fans of the series and those nostalgic for 1980s action cinema.

RATING: 6/10 (++)

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