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Harry is coming under personal attacks by gang members riled at his constant success rate of arresting or blowing away fellow criminal associates, so for his own safety his bosses relocate him out of the city and to a small coastal town. However, this town is also home to Jennifer (Sandra Locke), an artist and rape victim who is slowly making her way through the gang with bloody retribution on her mind - a task that puts her on collision course with Harry.

The first plot strand of Sudden Impact which deals with Harry and the gangs coming after him, is fairly standard stuff for our protagonist. Eastwood as director directs these action scenes nimbly enough, as Harry becomes ever more Bond-like, despatching adversaries in increasingly outlandish ways, snarling his way through a one-liner as he does it. It is this film that gives birth to his second-most famous line of dialogue - "Go ahead. Make my day." - and it's credit to Eastwood as actor that Harry still feels fresh and not a parody and credit to Eastwood as director that he understands where the wit lies in Harry as a character. Anything that does not involve blasting away at bad guys is a mere irritant to Harry, and there's a nicely judged scene where Harry is blissfully unaware of his coffee cup being filled to the brim with sugar by a waitress desperate to catch his attention.

The second strand, however, of Jennifer's revenge, is at once both the most flawed and most interesting of the film. What's interesting is that it almost serves as a dry run for one of Clint's later masterpieces. A gang of men have beaten up and abused a defenceless woman so Clint comes riding to the rescue, even when it involves stepping outside of the law - sound familiar? Hell, Harry even gets an ethnic sidekick here that comes to a violent end. This isn't to suggest that Sudden Impact is a forgotten masterpiece, though. It's perhaps more likely that the similarities are co-incidental, but still, it's interesting to muse that already Clint is exploring themes and tropes that would form a substantial part of his further work.

But it is also the part of the film that is an interesting mess. A flashback to the rape scene delves nastily into exploitation cinema; the rapists reduced to cartoonish, gibbering goblins. There is no deftness of approach here, merely a director struggling to find his voice and sensitive touch in uncouth and ugly material. The gang of rapists are appalling stereotypes and appallingly acted, too (although no-one is as bad as Locke, who is apocalyptically awful here). Their language is salty, their delivery screechy; every expletive sneered out as if it's the first time they've ever said such a word. It does give the film a lurid and bluntly effective edge, but you can sense Eastwood struggling with it. He knows the brilliance of the first film was in the wit and satire of it, but this is a film rooted among the filth and the trash and as a director it drowns out what he wants to do with the character and the story.

Instead, there are scenes that show Eastwood's developing cinematic eye - Harry's midnight arrival at an empty fairground has him framed like a cowboy in a showdown - but the one moment where his direction really breathes is the final five minutes. I won't give it away for those who haven't seen it, but it raises question of justice and revenge and is the only moment that really tallies with the moral questions and ethical positions that the first two films posed. It's an interesting point to end the film on, but Eastwood's ineffectiveness at handling everything preceeding blunts its effectiveness somewhat.

Sudden Impact is a shrieking mess, eager to prove its adult nature by showing the brutal nature of the world it exists in. Harry's last outing, The Dead Pool, would be a far more civlised and fun finale for Harry, if a little tame. But while Sudden Impact is far from the greatness that the series was once, it is an interesting look at the direction that both character and director were taking.

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originally posted: 10/02/10 22:49:17
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