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
Dirty Harry Eastwood do what he does, and he does it so well." Film critic Roger Ebert gave the film three stars out four, calling it "very effective at the level of a thriller" but denouncing its moral position as "fascist." Gene Siskel gave the film a full four out of four stars and praised it as "one of the great police thrillers of motion picture history," though he too thought that the film's message was "dangerous." Roger Greenspun of "The New York Times" wrote that "what makes 'Dirty Harry' worth watching no matter how dumb the story, is Siegel's superb sense