Sudden Impact was the fourth instalment in the 'Dirty Harry' series and the only one in which Clint Eastwood not only starred in but directed as well. This time, Harry Callahan is sent up the coast by his superiors to investigate a series of murders that are connected to a small ocean side resort town.
I reckon this may well be the third best entry in the series after the peerless first instalment and its follow-up Magnum Force (1973). Unlike the other two in the series, this one has a more interesting plot-line which involves a vigilante killer played by Eastwood regular actress Sandra Locke. She almost shares top-billing with him here such is the prominence of her role. She plays by far the most sympathetic villain in the series, one who dispatches a series of truly vile characters who assaulted her and her now comatose sister ten years previously. It's the very fact that the role has been written with a lot more depth that contributes to the audience empathising with her, while still knowing that she is committing a series of murders. This dramatic tension is underpinned by the theme of how ineffective and corrupt the justice system can be, leading to victims taking the law into their own hands.
This is probably the entry in the series that most veers into psychological thriller territory and I think this change does work in its favour. However, its bread and butter is still action and it hardly falls short on that score. There is an ongoing plot thread which has Callahan continually targeted by Mob hit-men who want him dead for an earlier infraction he instigated against one of their big bosses. Not only this but he also has high adrenaline encounters with three other sets of different criminals. It could be argued, however, that in its latter stages the film went too much in the direction of having villains acting like half-wits allowing for Callahan to escape their clutches and return to defeat them, while the finale in the fun-park felt a little too simplistically cheesy. But, these small gripes aside, I thought this to be a pretty fine effort for a fourth instalment in a film series and a pretty good film in its own right overall.
