…annoyingly garbled morally…Eastwood is so busy subverting audience notions of who Dirty Harry is that he neglects to provide much fan service at all…

| Original Score: 2/5 | Feb 11, 2024

It probably won't matter to audiences, enjoying the preposterous body count, that Sudden Impact takes Dirty Harry treacherously close to self-parody.

| May 13, 2023

What it all comes down to is an exercise in manipulation for the Neanderthal sensibility.

| Original Score: 2/4 | May 12, 2023

Sudden Impact can be fun, if you do not take it too seriously. But it is so unrelievedly brutal and ugly, particularly in the last part, that even hard-core Dirty Harry fans may find themselves recoiling from the experience.

| May 12, 2023

The movie deserves credit for wading through the same muddy waters as Dirty Harry and Magnum Force.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 16, 2021

Though it's been seven years since the previous entry, the character hasn't changed all that much, save for a few extra wrinkles and grayer hair.

| Original Score: 4/10 | Sep 8, 2020

'80s cop-drama sequel has rape, murder, revenge.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 30, 2016

Considering that Sudden Impact delivers one of the most memorable lines in movie history, it's surprising how forgettable the rest of it is.

| Original Score: C | Dec 11, 2013

At times like a traffic jam of different stories and characters crossing paths back and forth for almost two hours, and there isn't too much tension to go with it.

| Aug 20, 2012

...stretches the believability factor to the limit, with a story that is all over the map.

| Original Score: 6/10 | May 21, 2010

A study of the Dirty Harry macho drive, worked out lucidly by the filmmaker and his avenging muse

| Apr 2, 2010

The film lags whenever Eastwood isn't on screen, but even his dryly humorous patter can't offset the very sour, mean tone of the rest of the film.

| Jun 18, 2009

It is viewed by many aficionados as the best of the five movies about the hard-nosed, authority-defying San Francisco cop.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 30, 2009

This is the first entry in the series to have been directed by Eastwood himself, and action is put over with great force, if also with some obviousness.

| Mar 26, 2009

Sadly, Clint was still sleeping with Sandra Locke and giving her work! The worse of the "Dirty Harry" films...didn't "make my day"

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 15, 2008

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 12, 2008

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 2, 2007

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 12, 2007

Eastwood the star needed a hit to bolster his flagging ratings; now that he's got it, maybe Harry will be put out to stud, with his Magnum.

| Jun 24, 2006

Harry starts to parody himself with this one.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Dec 8, 2005