4K Blu-Ray Review: Dirty Harry

The Film

I've always had my issues with Dirty Harry, just as I've had my issues with cop films in general. This grimy 70s thriller, directed by Don Siegel and loosely based on true-life crimes of the era, marked a turning point in how America viewed its police once again.

While others, like The French Connection and The Conversation, saw the overreach of law enforcement troubling and the government to be distrusted in general, Dirty Harry presented a far more right-wing and conservative fantasy. One where a single individual could right wrongs as long as they could bend the system to their will. Laws were for the weak, after all. Loose cannons got results.

The first Dirty Harry, luckily, is still somewhat restrained on this front, and isn't the kind of violent ode to vigilantism the series turned into. Siegel and Eastwood, longtime partners in film, somehow found a way to keep each others worst tendencies in check.

Viewed today, Dirty Harry must be watched as a time capsule of a very, very different era. It's like a microcosm of an America that spun out of control just a few short decades later. At the same time, it's melancholy and incredible to see what San Francisco looked and felt like 50 years ago.

Despite grievances, there's no denying that Siegel is an incredible director and Eastwood a star of the screen. This is a magnetic and often viscerally immaculate picture that never lets the viewer off easy. It has so many iconic moments you could fill an entire review just reciting them. To this day, people will quote the "do you feel lucky, punk?" line, even if they don't know where it came from.

In short, it's a great movie, up to a point. But you have to go at it with reservations and certain caveats. To fully accept its worldview is just asking for trouble, because it's far too happy to skip along, hand-in-hand, with fascism in an effort to placate a power fantasy for middle-aged men.

Video

Whatever problems I have with the film itself are irrelevant to the visual presentation, which is the best I've seen yet in an old restoration. Everything from film grain to the strikingly moody cinematography is gorgeously restored and refined. All without losing anything of the original roughness to AI trickery or over-sharpening.

I saw Dirty Harry at a revival screening some years ago in theaters, and I remember thinking how incredible the night sequences were, and how, at the time, none of them translated to the Blu-Ray release. Finally, the 4K matches the experience at home.

For example, take a look at the finale in the baseball stadium, and just look at the detail in the bleachers where the light doesn't quite reach. You could swear this was shot yesterday.

This is how film preservation should be done, and it's easily my favorite disc of the year so far.

Audio

Similarly praiseworthy is the audio mix, which, for the first time, includes the original 2.0 Mono track split over two channels. Previous releases have included a new mix, which is here as well, that adds new sound design elements to make up for their omissions in the original print.

Now, that presents a complicated situation. Yes, it sounds better, and it's more palatable for modern audiences – but it's not the original film. It's a amalgamation of the real thing, and while it sounds great (it really does!), purists and film conservationists like myself will always prefer the real thing.

Finally, that original track is presented here with an absolutely stunning DTS-HD Master Audio track that is cleaned up, but untouched otherwise. It's precisely what 4K was promised to be, and what film and art preservation should aspire to.

I applaud Warner Bros. for releasing a thoroughly superlative print like this with such completeness in this day and age. It proves physical media has a place and is vital to film as an art form. Dirty Harry deserves a place in every collection. It's that good.

Extras

The two new featurettes are kind of wet rags, as they're barely 20 minutes in length total and bring nothing new to the table. It's just a collection of badly put together retrospectives that say nothing about the film now or then, and refuse to engage with the material beyond a love-fest. It would have been far more interesting to hear about the preservation process at length, or have actual critics and art scholars discuss the political elements of the film throughout the ages.

Luckily, the legacy features, including two superb documentaries: American Masters Career Retrospective and The Man from Malposo, more than make up for it. These two were already on the Blu-Ray, and remain some of the best docs on the works of Clint Eastwood. They're revelatory, incisive, and smart works that should be essential viewing for film students and those interested in Dirty Harry beyond just the iconography.

Dirty Harry: The Original is a 30 minute documentary on the impact of the first film and how it launched a surprise franchise for Eastwood. It's very self-congratulatory, but it's also a fantastic time capsule to see how films were released and received 50 years ago.

Finally, the Interview Gallery is about an hours worth of short discussions with actors, editors and filmmakers about their work and connection to the franchise. These range from a few nifty soundbites to just pointless PR jargon. It's a nice addition, but mostly fluff.

Overall

Whatever problems I have with Dirty Harry as a film and a franchise pale in comparison to the essential nature of this 4K release. It is, simply put, everything 4K should stand for. A perfect encapsulation of film preservation that showcases both the original and the restored edition of the film in the best light possible, presenting the viewer with an option to experience it in both ways.

If you only buy films rarely, or even at all, you still owe it to yourself to get Dirty Harry. It is that vital. End of story.