Eastwood steps behind the camera for this installment and breathes new life into the series.

Very simple plot-woman and sister get raped 10 years earlier-sister becomes a vegetable-woman goes on a hunting spree attempting to kill everyone involved with the rape.

Dirty Harry has finally pissed off his superiors enough for them to send him off to another city to gather information concerning the first murder victim.

Eastwood is great through most of the movie. His most famous line is uttered in this one-'Go ahead, make my day'-the first half of the film is filled with great lines.

Locke does a good job with her role-kind of a one note performance but that one note is a good note.

The…

Clint Eastwood plays our last defense against thugs, rapists, liberals, bleeding heart judges, lesbians, due process, pimps and CHUDs. Pauline Kael famously called the original Dirty Harry "fascist," but it's a bit more complex than that; Sudden Impact, on the other hand, is a hysterical far-right nightmare that has more in common with the Death Wish sequels than the original film (though it's never quite as hilariously ludicrous as Death Wish 3). When it arrived at the inevitable scene of Harry's supervisors taking him off active duty, I silently commended their good judgement. Harry's identification with the artist (Sondra Locke) seeking bloody revenge for a gang rape years earlier could be an interesting twist on the series' heteronormal gender politics…

This fourth installment of the Dirty Harry series has no business being as entertaining as it is. The criticisms are numerous. It does not so much wear its moral beliefs on its sleeve as it advertises them in bright lights. Instead of subtly inserting commentary within the actions of the characters, the film instead has them spouting them off directly in embarrassingly over-written dialogue.
Sudden Impact is essentially 50% Dirty Harry vehicle and 50% rape-revenge film, like the screenwriters thought "what would happen if Harry Callahan encountered Paul Kersey's vigilante character from Death Wish?" Great idea in theory, as both are arguably working the same neighborhood philosophically. However the result does not even raise any real ethical questions. It is…