text: In Don Siegel's 1971 masterpiece "Dirty Harry", Clint Eastwood epitomized the super-tough, super-cool unorthodox, no-nonsense cinema-cop with his role of the eponymous Inspector 'Dirty' Harry Callahan. Two sequels followed, the first of which, "Magnum Force", tamed down on the delightfully politically incorrect attitude of the first one that had outraged many critics but enthused audiences. The second sequel, "The Enforcer" was grittier again, and was promoted as "the dirtiest Harry of them all". This title, however, truly belongs to the fourth film in the series, Clint Eastwood's own "Sudden Impact", which is doubtlessly the grittiest, nastiest, most violent and downright dirtiest of all Harry films, and, in my humble opinion, the second-best after the masterpiece original.<br /><br />***Warning! SPOILERS ahead!*** In a small town near San Francisco, a mysterious sexy lady (Sondra Locke) lures men into being alone with her. What these men don't know is that mysterious beauty is their former rape victim, longing for bloody revenge. As fate wants it, San Francisco's toughest cop, Inspector Dirty Harry Callahan, who has been suspended once again for angering his superiors, spends his leisure time in this exact little town... "Sudden Impact" is the dirtiest Callahan film in several aspects. The film is extremely gritty and graphically violent. Harry Callahan himself is dirtier than ever. Not afraid to make use of his 44. Magnum in order to stop trouble, Harry treats 'punks' as they are to be treated and even allows a person to get away with several murders because the revenge-murders are justified in his opinion. Clint Eastwood is, as always, brilliant in the role of Harry Callahan. Eastwood epitomized coolness and bad-assery as the "Man With No Name" in Sergio Leone's Dollar Trilogy, and he did so again in the Dirty Harry films. "Sudden Impact" gives us the dirtiest Harry we have ever seen. Eastwood's real-life girlfriend Sondra Locke fits very well in the role of the vengeful beauty. The great Pat Hingle, who had already worked with Eastwood in Ted Post's tough-minded Western "Hang 'Em High" in 1986 plays the police chief of the small town. The film furthermore includes a wide range of truly despicable scumbag characters, including a pathetic criminal played by Kevin Major Howard (best known for his role in Stanley Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket") and a woman named Ray Perkins (Audrie J. Neenan), doubtlessly one of the most disgusting and despicable female characters ever in cinema. Albert Popwell, who played the bank robber in the famous "Do You Feel Lucky?" scene in "Dirty Harry" and the black militant leader in "The Enforcer" is also part of this one again, this time as Harry's colleague and buddy. Overall "Sudden Impact" is the grittiest, dirtiest and probably the most violent of all "Dirty Harry" films, (though "The Dead Pool" isn't exactly tame either), and my second-favorite after the brilliant 1971 original. An absolute must-see for Callahan fans, and highly recommended to all lovers of police thrillers and cinematic bad-assery. My rating: 8.5/10