Magnum Force (1973)

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General		Extras
Category	Action	Main Menu Audio Listing-Cast & Crew Featurette-The Hero Cop-Yesterday And Today Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	1973
Running Time	117:33
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (75:24)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Ted Post
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Clint Eastwood Hal Holbrook Tim Mathison David Soul Robert Urich Kip Niven Mitchell Ryan
Case	?
RPI	$34.95	Music	Lalo Schifrin

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 1.0 (192Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 1.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English French Italian Dutch Arabic Spanish Portuguese German English for the Hearing Impaired Italian for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Magnum Force is about a motorcycle cop killing off high-profile criminals - we see that it's a motorcycle cop from the beginning, but Harry doesn't find out for a while. We get to see a bit of Harry's home life in this movie, not that there's a lot to his home life. And he gets to meet some of his neighbours, including the attractive young lady downstairs. We get to see Harry competing in the police combat shooting competition (he's the reigning champion, unsurprisingly).

    You know, I thought every Dirty Harry movie had a tagline. The first one had "Do you feel lucky?". I was surprised to find that there's no such tagline in Magnum Force. The closest we get is Harry saying "a man has to know his limitations"; but it isn't the same without him pointing his gun at a crook.

    There are definite elements to each Dirty Harry movie, however. Early in the movie, Harry stumbles into a crime being committed, and deals with things in his own inimitable way. His partner is always a representative of a minority; in this case an African-American. Before the movie is over, Harry will have mouthed off to authority, fired several shots, been shot at repeatedly, and will have solved the case in an unconventional way. And Albert Popwell will have a small part; in this movie he's a big-time pimp (he was the target of "do you feel lucky, punk?" in Dirty Harry, he's the leader of a sect in The Enforcer, and Harry's colleague in Sudden Impact).

    It wasn't until I saw this movie again that I noticed how closely the theme to Gunsmith Cats (review here) resembles the theme to Magnum Force. That's probably deliberate.

Video

    This movie is presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, 16x9 enhanced. That's the original aspect ratio.

    The image is fairly sharp. Shadow detail is limited, with a fair bit of unrelieved black, especially in night-time scenes. There's absolutely no low-level noise, though.

    Colour is excellent. Bright, fully saturated colours appear without over-saturation or colour bleed. Much of the colour palette is a little drab, however, to imply the sordidness of Harry's working life.

    There are almost no few film artefacts, which is amazing for a film this old. The real problem is aliasing - there is noticeable aliasing on every car grille, every car door, Venetian blinds - every possible place; there's even moire on the walls of the shooting range - it's continual, but it never gets above noticeable to irritating. There is some shimmer in backgrounds, too, but it's fairly minor. There's nothing particular in the way of MPEG artefacts. There's a little bit of telecine wobble on the credits, but I suspect that may be inherent in the source material.

    The subtitles are fine. They're white with a black border, in a simple sans serif font, placed over the bottom of the picture. They are accurate enough, and well-timed. There are lots of gaps without any dialogue, so don't worry if you don't see any subtitles for a while.

    The disc is single-sided and dual-layered, formatted as RSDL. The layer change is at 74:24. It is placed at a cut from a black night-time scene to a door just before it opens. With no sound at the time, the layer change is invisible - nice work.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    We get three soundtracks: English, French, and Italian. The English soundtrack is Dolby Digital 5.1 at 384 kbps - that's what I listened to. The other two soundtracks are Dolby Digital mono at 192 kbps. Exactly the same as Dirty Harry - they have been consistent on this.

    The dialogue is clear and mostly understandable, even with the variety of accents. There are no visible audio sync problems.

    The score is another Lalo Schifrin. It's not the same as Dirty Harry, but definitely related. It's not deathless, but it does the job.

    The surrounds are used nicely on some effects, but they don't get a lot of use. The subwoofer is the same - there's not a huge amount of lower octave.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

    The main menu is static, with music. It is very plain, and not awfully pretty, but it's functional.

Cast and Crew

    A simple list of the main players, nothing more.

Featurette: The Hero Cop - Yesterday and Today (8:04)

    Basically an extended trailer, but it is of dreadful quality. Limited historical interest.

Trailer (2:16)

    The trailer is presented in about 1.78:1. It is reasonable quality. 

    This movie has not been previously released in R1; it is being released as part of the Dirty Harry box set on 20 November 2001. The features sound like they will be the same.

    Magnum Force is a rather good DVD of a classic Dirty Harry movie.

    The video quality is quite good, considering the age of the film, except for the aliasing.

    The audio quality is good, but doesn't really take advantage of the 5.1 mix. The original soundtrack was mono.

    The extras are rudimentary.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall