Very present in Eastwood's work, the violence is never gratuitous, but most often guided by the concern for justice, even expeditious.
This article is taken from Figaro Special Edition “Clint Eastwood, the last of the Giants”.
Le Figaro
«Go ahead, make my day! » “Go ahead, make me happy!” » : the provocative invitation thrown to a mobster by “Dirty Harry” Callahan in The Return of Inspector Harry (1983), ordering him to use his weapon to give him the pleasure of shooting him, fixed for a long time the cliché of Clint Eastwood as a sadistic brute, enjoying the summary execution of the criminals he chases and, therefore, hardly less barbaric than them. It doesn't matter that he was not the signatory of four of the five parts of the series, and that this role of expeditious cop was first offered to other actors, including Steve McQueen and Paul Newman: sexist, reactionary, partisan of an immanent justice which does not always bother with the courts, Inspector Harry, with his 44 Magnum, “giant phallus with a long barrel” according to the popess of American progressive criticism…
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