Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

(Flash Review)This movie begins like the others with Harry getting resigned to a small and seemingly quaint seaside town after his usual brusque tactics botch another investigation. Trouble follows him, as there'd be no movie otherwise, and Harry gets involved with helping to apprehend a potential multiple killer. He fights the usual political battles, uncovers clues with Harry's typical 'charm' all while tossing in an intriguing female interest and boom there's your action flick. Fairly formulaic with a moderately interesting plot. The Dirty Harry series chugs on.

RELEASED IN 1983 and directed by Clint Eastwood, "Sudden Impact" stars Clint Eastwood as a no-nonsense San Francisco detective, who is assigned a murder case that leads him to a coastal town an hour or two south of the Bay area. Sondra Locke plays a troubled woman from the town while Pat Hingle is on hand as the tight-wound sheriff. Bradford Dillman returns as Capt. Briggs.I'm a fan of all five of the Dirty Harry films, which are as follows: "Dirty Harry" (1971), "Magnum Force" (1973), "The Enforcer" (1976), "Sudden Impact" (1983) and "The Dead Pool" (1988)."Magnum Force" is my favorite, a rare case where the sequel is superior to the original, while the first film is my least preferred, although I still like it. I just think the stories in the four sequels have more story drive and better characters. "Dirty Harry" seems languid and hollow by comparison, but it gets points for being the original film and establishing the series."Sudden Impact" is the only film in the series directed by the star and the second longest; it's probably my second favorite, although it's pretty much on par with "The Enforcer" and "The Dead Pool." Like the first two films, the topic is vigilante justice: If the Law can't or won't bring about justice, it compels the victimized citizen to seek it more directly.Locke tends to get flack for a relatively short film career rooted in her relationship with Eastwood. But (1.) This film proves she had the acting chops in that she plays the haunted artist superbly, and (2.) I've seen her in SEVEN MOVIES and two of them WEREN'T Eastwood films, "Willard" (1971) and "The Prophet's Game" (2000). Name the most popular actress of practically any decade and I guarantee you I've seen her in less films. In other words: Say what you will, but Sondra made her mark in cinema. Those who badmouth her are simply envious."Sudden Impact" is memorable for its dirtbag handful of antagonists with the loathsome Audrie Neenan and psychotic Paul Drake standing out. I like the climax at the nighttime carnival, although parts of it are too contrived (yeah, like the other installments weren't). The final doom of Mick (Drake) explains the movie's title.THE FILM RUNS 117 minutes and was shot in Santa Cruz & San Francisco, California. THE SCRIPT was written by Joseph Stinson from the story by Earl E. Smith & Charles B. Pierce.GRADE: B+

In the first three "Dirty Harry" movies, Detective Inspector Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) was seen as the maverick cop whose contempt for his superiors, the justice system and the rulebook regularly got him into trouble and in "Sudden Impact" nothing has really changed. He continues to survive in his job because his unorthodox methods get results but periodically, the costs of his actions in terms of expenses, physical destruction and bad publicity become so great that he temporarily has to be taken out of the firing line for the benefit of everyone involved.One of these situations arises again after the San Francisco cop shoots dead a whole group of criminals who were robbing a diner and then shortly after, confronts a local crime boss at his grand-daughter's wedding, in such a way that the old man suffers a fatal heart attack. Callahan, typically, is furious about being forced to take an unscheduled vacation but is left with no other choice.Unfortunately, when he's on vacation, Callahan gets attacked by a group of the crime boss' men and kills three of them before eliminating another group of thugs who try to kill him because he'd arrested one of their number who'd recently appeared in court but had been freed on a technicality. In the circumstances, Callahan gets assigned to a murder case which takes him to San Paulo, a nearby small town where he becomes friendly with a woman called Jennifer Spencer (Sondra Locke) and also finds that the local police chief, Lester Jennings (Pat Hingle), is openly hostile to the presence of a big city cop and has no intention of providing any assistance or co-operation.More killings (which are all carried out in the same way) follow and Callahan discovers that ten years earlier, the victims were all involved in the brutal gang-rape of Jennifer Spencer and her younger sister who'd remained in a catatonic state ever since. Callahan's methods for bringing murderers to justice are normally very simple and straight forward but, in this case, he decides that a rather different course of action is more appropriate."Sudden Impact" delivers its entertaining combination of action and humour at a brisk pace and features a punchy script which is full of witty one-liners and of course, the legendary catchphrase, "Go ahead. Make my day". The quality of the acting is very effective throughout with Clint Eastwood on great form. This was the only movie in the "Dirty Harry" series that Eastwood also directed and his work in relation to the action sequences and those where he makes good use of light and shadows to create the desired atmosphere are top class.Every crime thriller needs an interesting villain and Jennifer Spencer certainly fits the bill because she's a tragic victim, a brutal serial killer and also an artist whose works express her anguish very powerfully. This traumatised woman with a blank expression had, for ten years, harboured her hatred of the rapists and her absolute despair for her sister's predicament and although she might have derived some short-term satisfaction from carrying out her killing spree, it definitely wouldn't have brought her any closer to a cure for her ills.Audiences know exactly what they're going to get with a "Dirty Harry" film and on the evidence of the huge box office receipts for "Sudden Impact", no-one was disappointed this time around.

Sudden Impact (1983)*** (out of 4) Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) not only upsets his bosses with his ways of handling thing but he also upsets a Mafia family who puts a hit out on him. When things become too crazy in San Franscisco he's sent up north to do some investigating on a murder and soon more bodies begin to pile up. It turns out that a woman (Sondra Locke) is seeking vengeance for the rape against her and her sister by tracking down those responsible.SUDDEN IMPACT is a good film, to a point, but there's no question that it was the weakest in the series up to date. It's rather strange because you could argue that on a technical level this here is the best one since the first film and a lot of the credit has to go to Eastwood who not only stars in the film but also produced and directed it. This fourth film certainly has a lot more polish on it as there's much more style and it's clear that Eastwood's directing skills are as sharp as always.The biggest problem with this movie is its screenplay, which was credited to two different writers and the story itself was also credited to two people includes Charles B. Pierce, the man behind films like THE LEGEND OF BOGGY CREEK and THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN. I'm not sure what went wrong or what the original story idea was but what remains is a real mess. I say this because it really does seem as they were making stuff up as they went along because there's simply way too much stuff here and there's no doubt that some editing would have really helped. We get a ton of "story" at the start of the film and while the stuff with the Mafia makes for some great action scenes, in reality its story is bad. The stuff dealing with the rape/revenge is pretty straight-forward but then there's cover-ups and other things thrown in and by the time the ending comes it's just a big mess.With that said, the reason Dirty Harry is a classic is easily seen even in the weakest of the series. For starters, we've got Eastwood back, kicking butt and adding more bullets to countless scumbags. Seeing the actor with his laid back approach and sly humor works once again and there's no doubt that the actor can put a smile on your face with his one-liners. The quote "Go ahead, make my day" comes from this film and deserves its classic status. The action scenes are also quite brutal and it's always amazed me that the MPAA was so harsh against slasher films from this era but some of the gunshot wounds here are very violent in their own way but I'm certainly not going to complain.Locke is good in her supporting role as the rape victim and Pat Hingle is also very good in his role. Albert Popwell is fun in his supporting role and fans of PORKY'S will also be happy to see Nancy Parsons. SUDDEN IMPACT is certainly a product of its era but that's really not a bad thing. While the film is certainly watchable you can't help but notice its flaws and a little editing and a better story would have made for something more memorable.