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I do like the movie overall, but I was somewhat disappointed in the ending. I feel that the villain starts out so smart when it comes to covering his tracks, and he has gotten away with two murders if I am correct.
However, after he has gotten away with the murders, he decides to do something really stupid, which is to take a public bus hostage for ransom and paint himself into a corner, even though the police are going to have a much easier time at getting him on a bus compared to before, when they didn't even know where he was. Now he is not only trapped on a bus but he has shown his face to all these witnesses, that he doesn't have enough bullets for now, if after he gets the money.
So I feel that it may have been lazy writing and the writers were thinking "now that he's gotten away with the murders, how is Harry going to get him now... well Harry can't get him now, now that all the evidence is inadmissible, and we don't want Harry to kill him and get rid of all the evidence to get off for the crime... So let's just have him take a bus hostage, and completely make mistakes that he was too smart to make before".
It just felt like a black and white Hays code ending, for what was suppose to be a really edge cop thriller. But what do you think?
I guess that's how most of them get caught, but I thought that cinematically, it would have been more entertaining for the villain mastermind, to stay a mastermind, and not all of a sudden in the third act, throw the hero a huge freebie to get himself trapped.
It is your basic Criminal Minds episode. He escalated after the first ones when he got away with it. In the Dirty Harry case even though he was shot and caught he got away with it because of Inspector Callahan not respecting his rights and using physical torture so he escalated
I do like the movie overall, but I was somewhat disappointed in the ending. I feel that the villain starts out so smart when it comes to covering his tracks, and he has gotten away with two murders if I am correct.
However, after he has gotten away with the murders, he decides to do something really stupid, which is to take a public bus hostage for ransom and paint himself into a corner, even though the police are going to have a much easier time at getting him on a bus compared to before, when they didn't even know where he was. Now he is not only trapped on a bus but he has shown his face to all these witnesses, that he doesn't have enough bullets for now, if after he gets the money.
So I feel that it may have been lazy writing and the writers were thinking "now that he's gotten away with the murders, how is Harry going to get him now... well Harry can't get him now, now that all the evidence is inadmissible, and we don't want Harry to kill him and get rid of all the evidence to get off for the crime... So let's just have him take a bus hostage, and completely make mistakes that he was too smart to make before".
It just felt like a black and white Hays code ending, for what was suppose to be a really edge cop thriller. But what do you think?
The scene for me was horrifying. In the early 1970s, I was a victim of severe child abuse at age 5, and that bus scene brought back instant flashbacks. So, yes, they could have written a better story ending.
Well, I felt that the theme of the movie is how cops felt powerless to deal with criminals who keep slipping through the legal cracks, so I felt the movie should have kept that theme until the end, and Harry would feel he would have to straight up murder the guy, to keep him from killing again.
Even when Harry has his gun on him, Harry is only willing to shoot him if the guy picks up his gun and tries to shoot Harry. I thought a more dramatic ending, would be if the villain chose not to pick up his gun and chose to put his hands up and surrender, but Harry said to him that he wasn't going to have him get off again, and Harry then shoots him in the head, after he has already surrendered. This would be more dramatic and keeping with the ends justifies the means theme, which I felt they abandoned for an ending that felt too clean maybe.
Well, I felt that the theme of the movie is how cops felt powerless to deal with criminals who keep slipping through the legal cracks, so I felt the movie should have kept that theme until the end, and Harry would feel he would have to straight up murder the guy, to keep him from killing again.
Even when Harry has his gun on him, Harry is only willing to shoot him if the guy picks up his gun and tries to shoot Harry. I thought a more dramatic ending, would be if the villain chose not to pick up his gun and chose to put his hands up and surrender, but Harry said to him that he wasn't going to have him get off again, and Harry then shoots him in the head, after he has already surrendered. This would be more dramatic and keeping with the ends justifies the means theme, which I felt they abandoned for an ending that felt too clean maybe.
Which would make Callahan a dirty cop. He was a cop who didn't always follow the rules, but he wasn't a dirty cop.
For a great dirty cop movie, watch Bad Lieutenant, starring Harvey Keitel (dir. Abel Ferrara).
For a great show about dirty cops, watch The Shield, starring Michael Chiklis and Walt Goggins. It was an FX show that ran from 2002-2008.
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