L'Inspecteur ne renonce jamais

I can’t help it, but with Clint Eastwood, as fine as he is, the quality of his films is like a sine wave. You never know if you’re going to enjoy his film or not, and everyone has mixed opinions about any given film of his. Even with this film, there will be those who will praise it, but there are guaranteed to be those who will say it was one big bore. I belong to the latter batch. I would say that The Enforcer is an absolutely typical American crime film of the seventies, with all the distinctive atmosphere and typical music that many other people still make fun of nowadays. (12/02/2013)

The third part in the series about the uncompromising policeman Callahan may not differ in quality from the first two parts in a significant way, but it still deserves only one star "as a reward" because even a relatively mild decline in the quality of the screenplay clearly exposes the problematic construction of the whole series. Besides being a gritty detective story, it also attempts to criticize the softened liberal administration, bureaucracy, and rampant protection of human rights, which later evolved into so-called political correctness. There is a rational foundation for such opinions, even if they don't resonate with me, but it's all presented so blatantly, half-heartedly, and naively that it's almost unpalatable. The screenplay contains a number of logical gaps and deficiencies, such as the old man in uniform by himself guarding a warehouse full of dangerous weapons, whose existence in the middle of the city doesn't make any sense, and logic is also lacking in the behavior of the criminals or the police officers who behave like a bunch of idiots, and only because both sides do so, the plot somewhat functions. And precisely because most of the characters behave like fools, they also lack the necessary charisma, so the film relies solely on traditionally macho Eastwood. However, he doesn't have as many memorable lines here that are the spice of the series, and his performance is rather routine. Overall impression: 25%. (21/09/2011)

The movie didn't quite hit the mark. Inspector Callahan himself was okay, but unfortunately, he found himself in the midst of a lackluster story. I couldn't shake off a sense of awkward despair watching Inspector Moore running around crazily. The film failed to entertain me as it did twenty years ago, and even the fake blood stood out as a sore point, something I wouldn't have bothered mentioning if I found the overall movie more satisfying. / Lesson learned: Beware of Shetland ponies. (31/05/2022)

It's definitely not as good as the previous two parts, but I liked how they managed to incorporate humor into the series without having to change the character of Harry Callahan too much. The female element also helped to revive the series. Unfortunately, the crime story screenplay is not as good, which may bore fans of the previous films. (14/08/2015)