Why do they call you "Dirty Harry"?

Why indeed?

Clint Eastwood's titular character, much like John Wayne's Green Berets, functions as a apologia for the questionable methods of a cop out for justice. The film takes great pains to put the audience in great pain, showing the Killer (no name given, he's a cardboard cutout anyway) doing all of his wonderful sadistic things to young girls, small children, etc.

When Harry finally tracks down the Killer and thinks he's got him, the weaselly long-haired DA pulls a reverse: Harry is in trouble! Why, you ask? He illegally searched and found the murder weapon, and tortured and denied medical attention to the Killer. The audience is appalled. This man is a psycho sodomizer, and you sympathize with him and let him go to kill again?! You stupid hippie.

And so, in the end, with the Killer brought to justice by Harry's .44 magnum, we are left with... what exactly? A film basking in righteous indignation.

An incidental detail is telling: Harry's wife, murdered by a drunk driver. An innocent victim. Where is the justice? The guilty must pay.

So the film constructs these absurd scenarios, where the audience knows with absolute certainty that if only those god damn hippies would let the police torture, stalk, and otherwise illegally persecute civilians, we'd all be safe. Because if you're innocent, you've got nothing to hide, right?

Dirty Harry is dressed up as an anti-hero, but we know the truth: his world is Manichean. But ours is not.

Harry is dirtier than we'd like to think.