Dirty Harry (character) Dirty Harry (character) Inspector Harold Francis Callahan, also known as Dirty Harry, is a fictional character in the "Dirty Harry" film series, which consists of "Dirty Harry" (1971), "Magnum Force" (1973), "The Enforcer" (1976), "Sudden Impact" (1983) and "The Dead Pool" (1988). Callahan is portrayed by Clint Eastwood in each film. From his debut, Callahan became the template for a new kind of movie cop: an antihero who does not hesitate to cross professional and ethical boundaries in pursuit of his own vision of justice, especially when the law is poorly served by an inept bureaucracy. Callahan is often considered
Clint Eastwood by critics. Janet Maslin of "The New York Times" wrote that film was "...the best and funniest Clint Eastwood movie in quite a while", and praised Eastwood's directing, intricately juxtaposing the old West and the new West. Later that year, Eastwood starred in "Any Which Way You Can", the sequel to "Every Which Way But Loose". The film received a number of bad reviews from critics, although Maslin described it as "funnier and even better than its predecessor". Released over the Christmas season of 1980, "Any Which Way You Can" was a major box office success and ranked among the