There's a lot of good things about this first Dirty Harry sequel. For starters, it's got a decent story - a vigilante cop is killing off baddies one by one (actually, sorry, sometimes that's ten by ten) making Harry look positively liberal. There's also a superb Lalo Schifrin score, stylish Ted Post direction (I love some of the shots, such as the cop assassin working his way through the bushes, and the opening hustle and bustle court scene.... why didn't Post do more features). There's decent some lines and scenes, plus an excellent cast including Hal Holbrook and a bunch of later TV stars in Tim Matheson, David Soul (very effective as a baddie) and Robert Urich.
There are a lot of dumb bits though. It's like the film had a solid basic structure but the filmmakers (in particular Clint) couldn't resist in shoving "bits" to show off Harry - like Harry happening to eat burgers at an airport cafe just as a hostage situation taking place (mind you it was fun to see Harry pretending to be a pilot) or Harry turning up at a supermarket as some more psychos were taking control. Or the sub-sub plot of Harry's hot Asian-American neighbour who flat outright seduces him.
Some of the action isn't that well staged - for instance during the final set piece I was never sure of which cop Harry had knocked off, and I got confused. And it was a long slog at the running time.
Still, a decent enough movie and the series definitely got worse.
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