I can't think of that movie without thinking how I'd rewrite it. Namely, I'd remove direct family references and make the main character even lonelier if he had anyone at all. The son was useless in the original anyway. The bitter Clint Eastwood character is mostly the same, but rather than explaining he used to work at a car factory he is evasive about anything to do with his own question raising past, to the point he (unbeknownst to the viewer) just makes up a name on the spot when introducing himself to his new young friends. This is a man that after watching the film will clearly have been hiding from society for some time for never fully explained reasons.

Most of the movie plays out the same, with this grumpy old man slowly becoming friends with a youth he couldn't initially understand. Realizing that this new friend's life path is in danger because of the social drain he is circling, he tries to coach him into a better life, perhaps one even more noble than he himself ever lead. When the simple act of disassociating himself from the life he was headed towards results in reprisal from family, the old man tries to intervene, only to realize with great sadness late in the film just how dirty the very streets he lives on has become. He realizes that saving this boy and his friends is a job only he is capable of or prepared to do. Having already accepted his fate early in the film, he gets dressed to confront the hoodlums who have brought hell to his new friends. As the scene cuts the viewer sees him look down at a weapon as if prepared to take it; it's an old .44 Magnum.

With the viewer assuming he is loaded and ready to start a gunfight, the end scene once again plays out like the original movie. With, if you're following along at home, obviously has one major exception. Confronting the boys about their animal like behavior, the leader asks "Do you wanna die old man?" to which this grizzled old man gives a small chuckle and retorts...

"Go ahead. Make my day."

He reaches inside his coat and the street trash open fire, killing this old helpless man. The police arrive shortly thereafter and catch them all, learning in the process that not only was this old man unarmed, but while the rookies are seeking to determine his identity they find the henceforth unmentioned cancer diagnosis letter from his doctor, explaining fully the suspected sickness of this old man displayed subtlely throughout the film rather than being announced early on as in the original. Not recognizing his face but recognizing the name on his license, a rookiee cop is taken aback, only to laugh and realize that those street trash didn't just kill an unarmed sickly old man, but a former legend among officers. He proudly tells them they are more or less royally fucked and the scene fades out on the body of Dirty Harry Callahan, with a glint of a smile still on his face.

His young friend who once came so close to a life of crime is instead seen in the closing scenes inheriting everything from Harry, learning more than he did from the cops about his friend's past life by looking through his worldly possessions. The movie closes a few years later, with this young living in his old friend's home and looking into camera cleaning something unspecified. He smiles briefly before his look turns stern, he rises as a fully uniformed officer of the law, holstering a newly restored Smith & Wesson M29 .44 Magnum. He walks out the door and we follow him in squad car much as we did the original movie's final scene with the Gran Torino. With one final act of pacifism, Dirty Harry has insured the streets stay a little cleaner.

Harry Francis Callahan 1930 - 2008

It was an awesome film, but I'll never be able to think of it without thinking of this alternate reality Dirty Harry.