The Enforcer (1976)

Respect has to be earned, even from a hardened cop who thinks he's seen it all. James Fargo's "The Enforcer," written by Stirling Silliphant and Dean Riesner, is the third of five Dirty Harry films, bringing back Clint Eastwood as tough San Francisco detective Harry Callahan. After Harry ends a liquor store holdup by driving his car straight through the front window, he's reprimanded and transferred to personnel, where he sits on a promotion board and bristles at the department's decision to promote women to inspector. Then a band of violent radicals, led by a psychopathic Vietnam veteran, raids a warehouse to steal a cache of military weapons, killing Harry's longtime partner (John Mitchum) in the process. Returned to homicide, Harry is assigned a new partner, Kate Moore (Tyne Daly), one of the very officers he opposed promoting. Kate proves far tougher and more resourceful than he expects, keeping up with him through a rooftop chase after a bomber. Harry also clashes with his image-conscious captain (Bradford Dillman), who's eager to pin the crimes on a Black community leader (Albert Popwell), and Harry instead teams up with the man to track down the real culprits. When the radicals kidnap the city's mayor and hold him hostage on Alcatraz Island, Harry and Kate head to the abandoned prison for a violent showdown. Daly makes the most of a role mainly designed to highlight the hero's virtues, and both leads give strong performances.