What color is the wind? Blew The film begins as Carmine Ricca, a labor
racketeer and mob boss, leaves the courthouse after his acquittal on a technicality in the
murder case of a labor union leader and his family, sparking anger among a crowd of protesters
outside. Ricca, his attorney Weinstein, a bodyguard,
and his driver James "Gino" Cantina drive a limo south towards Potrero Hill. The motorcycle cop we just saw earlier catches
up to the car and gestures for the driver to pull over. The driver pulls off onto a side street at
the next exit, and comes to a stop. The cop walks up to the car and asks the driver
for his license, telling him that he illegally crossed a double-white line. At Ricca's attorney's urging, the driver reluctantly
hands over his license. The cop goes back to his bike, supposedly
to write down information in his ticket book. After a few minutes, he returns and asks the
driver for his vehicle registration. The driver asks to get his license back. In response, the cop suddenly whips his revolver
out and shoots the limo driver in the side of the face. He then shoots the bodyguard in the passenger's
seat as he tries to draw a pistol. He then puts two bullets each into Ricca and
his attorney in the backseat. With all four men dead, the cop holsters his
smoking revolver, walks back to his motorcycle and rides away. Inspector 'Dirty' Harry Callahan and his partner
Earlington 'Early' Smith drive by the crime scene, but are asked to leave by Harry's newest
adversary on the force, the hot-tempered Lt. Neil Briggs, who had Harry "loaned" from Homicide
to Stakeout because he despises his methods (presumably also angered that Harry got his
badge back after throwing it away in disgust following the Scorpio case). The loathing is mutual; Harry detests Briggs
because of Briggs's hands-off, bleeding-heart law enforcement methods - Riggs proudly boasts
that he's never upholstered his gun once in all his years of police work, which leads
the unimpressed Harry to mock Briggs with the words, "A man's got to know his limitations." Harry and Early leave the scene and head to
San Francisco International Airport to take lunch at a snack shop run by Bill McKenzie,
a former buddy of Harry's from the force. Early, as a comparatively wet-behind-the-ears
youngster on the force, is grossed out when McKenzie talks about the Ricca killing and
a case he worked on involving a gruesome axe murder, all the while Harry chows down on
his burger as though nothing is untoward. But a code signal for trouble comes, and Harry
notices a group of concerned airport officials gathering around a small cul-de-sac. Harry investigates and finds that airport
security is sweating out the hijacking of a jetliner; Harry flashes his badge and learns
the hijackers want an overseas pilot, so Harry makes a suggestion. Dressed as a pilot, Harry gets aboard the
plane and begins taxiing towards the runway for takeoff, but when the copilot asks if
he knows how to fly, he admits that he never had a lesson... which shocks the gunmen in
the cockpit long enough for Harry to disarm one and kill the other, and gives him opportunity
to show up Lt. Briggs when he arrives at the scene. The dislike between Callahan and Briggs thus
escalates; when the surprised Briggs arrives at the now-freed aircraft Harry mockingly
asks him, "What are you doing here, Lieutenant?" and leaves while the lieutenant seethes at
being shown up. Later Harry arrives at a target range near
Oakland and encounters an old friend, traffic officer Charlie McCoy. McCoy has recently left his wife Carol, though
it is clear he still holds her close to his heart, and is bitter over how his life has
changed. Harry, concerned, suggests Charlie retire,
but Charlie vows never to do so and instead "go out fighting". In the target range Harry encounters four
rookie traffic cops Philip Sweet, John Davis, Donald "Red" Astrachan, and Michael Grimes,
who practice incessantly and are inseparable buddies from their days as Army Rangers. Harry chats with them for a few minutes and
even lets Phil Sweet try his .44; he is impressed by Sweet's dexterity with the heavy revolver
and with the four young policemen overall. The next day, the mystery motorcycle cop drives
out to Tiburon, and the hillside estate of a known gangster who is hosting a swimming
party. After parking his bike, he walks up the hill,
creeping through the bushes, equipped with a satchel charge and an M76 sub-machine gun. He tosses the satchel charge into the pool
to get the attention of the party-goers, who stare up at him, at which point he opens fire
- gunning down everyone in attendance. As the bodies lie dead around or even in the
pool, the officer walks back to his motorcycle and rides away. Briggs appears later on a broadcast condemning
the violence. Harry is watching the newscast at Carol McCoy's
house, and she is glad that the ordeal of her divorce is now over; she then asks Harry why he's never hit on
her, but her seduction is interrupted by the play of her rambunctious children, then by
a phone call to Harry from Early, who is part of a stakeout at a general store where possible
robbery suspects have arrived. Harry thus is forced to cut short his dinner
date with Carol and drive to the back entrance of the Cost Plus World Market on Taylor Street,
where through a two-way mirror in the manager's office, he and a uniformed officer monitor
as Early and two checkout associates attend to customers. A man who is at the magazine rack leaves and
then returns with three salty-looking dudes who promptly conjure shotguns and pistols. The group's leader punches the store's eldest
associate, orders him to find the store safe, and then orders Early to his knees - a fatal
mistake, for it gives Harry the opening to shoot him through the mirror. A gun battle erupts. Early shoots one of the robbers out front,
the driver gets away, and the last man is shot dead by Harry. After the robbery is stopped, Harry and Early
return to headquarters to finish the ensuing paperwork and they pass the four rookie cops,
whom Early knows from their days at the police academy. Later that night, we see a prostitute cut
in line at the Fairmont Hotel downtown to get a taxicab. When she is about to climb out of the cab
at her destination, the pimp she is coming to see suddenly appears out of nowhere and
roughly shoves her back into the cab and orders the driver to take off. He finds that she has been holding money from
him and warns her that she just had her last chance. Angered, he attacks her and attempts to rape
her. The cab driver, seeing the struggle, stops
the cab and runs off to call the police. Inside the cab, the pimp pours an entire bottle
of drain cleaner into the girl's mouth. As she writhes and convulses, the pimp takes
his hat and the emptied bottle with him as he leaves, and we see the prostitute's arm
fall out, limp, and dead. Some time later, the pimp is driving across
the Golden Gate Bridge when the vigilante motorcycle cop catches up to him and signals
for him to pull over. The pimp takes the first exit, makes a left
turn through the underpass, and stops on the service road underneath the north approach
to the bridge. The pimp, as an extra precaution, hides a
revolver under his crotch between his pant legs. The motorcycle cop dismounts his bike and
walks up to the car, and claims to have caught the pimp speeding. He asks the pimp for his license and vehicle
registration, and the pimp pulls out his wallet, flipping it to show his license, as well as
a wad of $100 bills. He fails to notice the cop slowly raising
his revolver. The pimp's eyes suddenly widen with horror
just as the cop shoots him in the side of the neck. As the pimp writhes in the seat, the cop empties
the rest of his bullets into his chest. The cop then re-holsters his revolver, walks
back to his motorcycle, and rides off as the pimp bleeds to death. Harry returns home that night where a new
neighbor, a young woman named Sunny, greets him; a long-time admirer of his heroism, Sunny
offers Harry her own gratitude by asking to bed him. But they are interrupted when Lt. Briggs calls
Harry to the city morgue to view the bodies of victims of the vigilante, all of them known
criminals, which include the freshly deceased pimp. Harry is reassigned to Homicide by his and
Briggs's superior, Captain Avery, but a clue is difficult to come by there are no witnesses
to the murders though uniformed patrolmen keep finding the bodies, and ballistics checks
of the bullets reveal uselessly generic information about the weapons used. The next day, Harry and Early examine a bullet
recovered from the pimp's body that proves to be a .357 Magnum round. Harry and Early also examine the pimp's car
at the crime lab, learning from the ballistics expert that the killer emptied an entire magazine
into the pimp from point-blank range. When he notices that the pimp was holding
out his driver's license and a $100 bill like he was trying to bribe a traffic cop, Harry
begins to suspect that the killer of these criminals is someone they'd never suspect. He thus begins to clash with Briggs when Briggs
suspects harbor side racketeer Frank Palancio, who had worked with Ricca in the past, may
be behind the murders. Harry and Early tail Palancio and harass him
as he is driven around the city. But elsewhere, the vigilante cop reaches the
top of a penthouse in Pacific Heights, puts a silencer on his revolver, and guns down
drug kingpin Lou Guzman and three of his associates (who are being monitored by Harry's friend
Frank DiGiorgio and his partner from an office building a block away) with a suppressed Colt
Python. As the killer makes his way to the basement,
he runs into Charlie McCoy, exiting the utility room. McCoy seems to recognize the killer cop and
thinks he is just another fellow officer... until the killer cop raises his revolver and
shoots McCoy in the chest. McCoy falls, his helmet falling off, at which
point the mystery cop shoots him again in the head, then leaves. Upon seeing DiGiorgio, the cop tells them
of McCoy's shooting, then holds back bystander. The killer cop removes his helmet... revealing
himself to be Davis. Lt. Briggs chews out Harry for harassing Palancio
before revealing McCoy's death. Harry and Davis see Charlie's widow and her
kids off for the funeral flight back east, and Harry thanks Davis for showing his support. But Harry harbors suspicions about Davis;
when they stumble into a robbery attempt at a bowling alley they subdue the robbers before
Davis furiously dresses down bystanders for letting such crimes take place. Later, Davis and Harry compete in a police
shooting contest. To prove his suspicions right, Harry borrows
Davis's revolver and deliberately misses one target. He recovers it and matches it to the bullets
from Charlie McCoy's body. But Harry is reluctant to reveal all he knows
when he shows Lt. Briggs a bullet under a forensic microscope, as he now trusts no one. His mistrust proves warranted when a police
raid hits Palancio's harbor side offices. Harry has asked for Davis and Sweet to back
him up. Palancio and his men are having lunch in the
office when they receive an anonymous phone call from an unseen person warning them that
they will be attacked in two minutes by hit men disguised as cops. When Sweet knocks on the door, Palancio blasts
him from behind the door with a shotgun, and a gun battle ensues. Harry takes out one thug wielding a sub-machine
gun before backup arrives. After backup arrives, Davis manages to take
out two thugs in the main office single-handedly. As Palancio attempts to flee, Harry clings
onto the hood of his car, distracting Palancio, who dies when he takes a wrong turn and is
skewered on a crane. When Briggs and Captain Avery try to blame
Harry for the debacle, Harry fights back by noting Palancio's men fired first, indicating
they were tipped off. Briggs refuses to believe it, vows to ruin
Callahan's career, and has Harry hand over the bullet he showed earlier. But the bullet is a fake, as Harry still has
the one he found earlier. He now reveals all to Early Smith as he gives
him the bullet to give to Briggs if anything happens to Harry. Harry, however, is confronted by the three
surviving vigilante cops in the garage of his apartment who make him an offer to join
their organization of killing criminals. Harry responds: "I'm afraid you've misjudged
me". The three vigilante cops then leave. Harry discovers and defuses a bomb in his
mailbox apparently left by the vigilantes in case he refused their offer, but a second
bomb kills Early. Briggs arrives and asks Callahan to drive
to police headquarters with the bomb. But in the car Briggs draws his .357 Magnum
Smith & Wesson Model 19 snub nose revolver and forces the inspector to disarm. Briggs
reveals himself as the leader of the death squad, cites the traditions of frontier justice
and summary executions, and says, "You're a great cop, Harry... but you'd rather stick
with the system." Callahan responds, "I hate the goddamn system! But until someone comes along with some changes
that make sense, I'll stick with it." Briggs then instructs Harry to get off at
the next exit, and as Harry looks in the rear-view mirror he sees Grimes following them. Instantly Harry knows he's been set up. Harry overpowers Briggs and knocks him unconscious,
then dumps Briggs out of the car at a shipyard. He then kills the pursuing Grimes by hitting
him head-on with his car. He runs onto an old aircraft carrier as the
remaining two vigilante cops arrive. The unarmed Harry evades his pursuers and
beats Astrachan to death in one of the abandoned ship's hallways, then takes his motorcycle
with Davis in pursuit. After a series of daring jumps on the carrier,
the two cyclists run out of deck space; Harry is able to stop, but Davis is unable to stop
in time, and rides straight off the carrier deck and into the water, where he drowns. Harry looks down at Davis's body floating
in the water and contemptuously says, "Briggs was right. You guys don't have enough experience". As Harry stumbles back to his damaged car,
Briggs appears again, his .38 snub nose aimed squarely at Harry. The crooked Lieutenant menaces the inspector
and threatens to prosecute Harry for killing fellow cops. Harry stealthily activates the timer on the
mail bomb as Briggs gets into the car and drives off. The bomb explodes before Briggs has driven
100 feet, killing the corrupt Lieutenant. The final scene of the movie is a close-up
of Harry's face as he again says the movie's famous tagline: "A man's got to know his limitations",
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