THEATER AND FILM / Randy Lewis : Dirty Harry Is Out of Magnum Zingers in ‘The Dead Pool’

My gripe with the script of “The Dead Pool” has nothing to do with the unsympathetic way it portrays journalists--even though it correctly zeroes in on those frothing jackals of TV news, not us pillars of virtue in the print media.

As far as I’m concerned, Dirty Harry could rant for two hours about newspaper writers, music critics, baseball, saxophone players, Rocky & Bullwinkle (well, maybe not Bullwinkle) or any other subject dear to my heart--as long as he did it with the famous Dirty Harry style.

But “The Dead Pool,” the fifth movie to let Dirty Harry Callahan dispatch his special style of justice to the lawbreakers of the world, fails to come up with even one memorable zinger like those in its predecessors.

There’s no “Do ya feel lucky, punk?” or “Go ahead, make my day.” Nothing we Dirty Harry aficionados can walk out of the theater with, whispering gruffly under our breath as we squint into the noonday sun. The only really witty bit in the picture is the visual joke of a miniature car race through the hilly streets of San Francisco.

The cleverest the movie gets in the dialogue department is during a gun battle in a Chinese restaurant, when Harry slips in the back door and waits unnoticed in a booth. As the head thug unwittingly works back Harry’s way, he is stopped cold in his tracks when Callahan looks up and mumbles, “You forgot your fortune cookie.” That’s the funny part.

But the punch line--”It says, ‘You’re . . . outta luck’ “--isn’t especially creative the first time Harry says it, and is a complete letdown when he dredges it up again at the film’s climax.

That’s an expression worthy of Rambo--not Dirty Harry.

When a dud line like that shows up twice in a Dirty Harry film, it might be time to hang up the world’s most powerful handgun. Why not give him a funnier, more realistic-sounding fortune like “Avoid confrontations at all costs” or “Attend to your health today”?

Where’s the fun in watching assorted mobsters and scumbags get blown away if they aren’t first verbally humiliated? It’s not a Clint Eastwood film without those snappy comebacks.

Even worse, though, is the muffed opportunity to turn a signature Dirty Harry routine on its head. Remember in the original “Dirty Harry” where he’s chasing down a crazed killer and periodically firing a round from his famous .44 Magnum? That’s the scene where he tells the maniac: “I know what you’re thinkin’: ‘Did he fire six shots, or only five?’ Well, to tell you the truth in all this excitement I kinda lost track myself. But being this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world and would blow your head clean off, you gotta ask yourself one question: ‘Do I feel lucky?’ (pause) Well, do ya, punk?”

In “The Dead Pool,” the villain extorts Harry into throwing down his weapon, or else he’ll kill the picture’s damsel in distress. Now they are on a chase, but this time Harry is the one in the sights of the trusty .44 Magnum. Once a couple of rounds have been fired, you begin to count. Hmmm, was that shot No. 2 or 3?

After several tension-building minutes, Harry steps out of the fog and confronts his would-be executioner. I was hanging on my seat--as was another Dirty Harry fan I spoke to later--hoping this punk would throw Callahan’s line back in his weathered face and down his throat. “Do ya feel lucky, Harry?”

But nooooooooooo. Harry simply announces: “You’re out of bullets. You know what that means? You’re . . . outta luck.” And with that, he effortlessly dispatches this psycho to the great fish locker in the sky.

That’s my complaint. The script of “The Dead Pool” has reduced Dirty Harry to Nothing-Very-Pithy-to-Say Harry.