Magnum Force - Plot

Plot

In 1972, mobster Carmine Ricca (Richard Devon) drives away from court and an angry mob after being acquitted on a technicality. An unseen SFPD motorcycle cop stops Ricca’s limo for a minor traffic violation. Suddenly, the patrolman pulls his service revolver (a .357 Magnum Colt Python), shoots all four men in the car, then rides away.

Inspector Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) and his partner Earlington "Early" Smith (Felton Perry) visit the crime scene despite them being loaned to stakeout by their Lieutenant. Callahan is controversial within the department. His superior, Lieutenant Neil Briggs (Hal Holbrook) views Callahan and his tactics—such as his handling of the Scorpio case, and foiling an aircraft hijacking at the airport by impersonating a pilot—as reckless and dangerous. The dislike is mutual, with Callahan mocking Briggs with the words "A man's got to know his limitations" after Briggs reveals to him his pride on not ever having to draw his gun in the line of duty; Harry also has noticeable delight in showing up Briggs after the foiled hijacking. Others, such as rookie traffic cops Philip Sweet (Tim Matheson), John Davis (David Soul), "Red" Astrachan (Kip Niven), and Michael Grimes (Robert Urich), see the inspector as a role model. Encountering Callahan at the indoor firing range, the young officers reveal that they are all ex-Airborne Rangers or Special Forces. The young officers' zeal and marksmanship impress Callahan.

More criminals are killed. A motorcycle cop attacks a mobster's pool party, using a satchel charge and a 9mm Smith & Wesson M76 sub-machine gun to kill multiple people. Later, a pimp (Albert Popwell) who killed one of his prostitutes (Margaret Avery) is himself shot at close range by a motorcycle cop. Callahan realizes that the pimp had let his killer approach him and had offered a bribe. He deduces that a cop is likely responsible, and begins suspecting it may be his old friend Charlie McCoy (Mitchell Ryan), who he encounters outside the firing range and who is despondent and suicidal after leaving his wife, Carol (Christine White).

After hearing McCoy's rant, Callahan visits Carol and finds out from her that McCoy was playing Russian Roulette only the night before. In the meantime, Carol tries to seduce Callahan, but her kids and Early's call for backup during his undercover operation break the mood. Back at his apartment building, Callahan meets a girl called Sunny (Adele Yoshioka) who immediately asks "What does a girl have to do to go to bed with you?", to which Harry replies, "Try knocking on the door." A bit later in the evening, Sunny knocks on Harry's door and they spend the night together, though their tryst is briefly interrupted when Lt. Briggs summons him to the city morgue to view the bodies of more victims. At the morgue, Briggs announces Callahan & his partner are back on homicide detail.

A motorcycle cop murders drug kingpin Lou Guzman & associates using a Colt Python equipped with a suppressor. However, Guzman is under surveillance across the street by Callahan's old partner, Frank DeGeorgio (John Mitchum), who sees McCoy dump his bike outside Guzman's apartment complex just before he witnesses Guzman's murder. The assassin motorcycle cop then encounters McCoy in the garage of Guzman's building and kills him to eliminate a potential witness. Meanwhile, Harry presents his suspicions about McCoy to Briggs, who informs him of McCoy's death. Later at a combat pistol championship where Davis becomes "the new pistol champ", a puzzled DeGeorgio tells Callahan that Davis was the first police officer to arrive after the murder of Guzman and McCoy.

Davis' promptness at the crime scene raises Callahan's suspicions of the rookie cops. During the shooting competition with the rookies, Callahan borrows Davis' gun and purposely embeds a slug in a range wall. Later at night he retrieves the slug, ballistics then reveal that the slug matches those found at the crime scene involving Guzman and McCoy. Harry begins to suspect that a secret death squad within the department is responsible for the murders.

Examining the slug while Harry refuses to reveal its source, Briggs ignores Callahan's suspicions and insists that mob killer Frank Palancio is behind the deaths. When Briggs obtains a warrant for Palancio's arrest and tells Harry to lead the arrest team, Callahan requests two of the four rookies, Davis and Sweet, as his backup. Palancio and his gang are tipped off shortly before the police raid via a phone call and told that killers dressed as police officers will hit them in two minutes. Palancio kills officer Sweet during the resulting shootout with a 12 gauge Winchester Model 1897 shotgun. During the prolonged arrest operation, Palancio and his men are also killed.

After the raid, the three remaining renegade cops, sitting on their bikes, confront Callahan in his garage complex. When Harry tells them they've killed a dozen people and asks what they're going to do next week, Davis cold-bloodedly replies, "Kill a dozen more." They present Callahan with a veiled ultimatum to join their organization; he responds, "I’m afraid you've misjudged me." Without saying a word, they drive away on their motorcycles. While checking his mailbox, Harry discovers a bomb left by the vigilantes in case he refused their offer. He then inspects his apartment for further traps just before saving Sunny's life by preventing her from opening his mailbox. Callahan defuses the bomb, but a second bomb at Smith's home kills his partner as Harry tries to warn him.

Callahan calls Briggs and tells him about the bombs. When Briggs arrives from City Hall, Harry shows him the bomb that was in his mailbox. Briggs wants to get the bomb back to headquarters and asks Callahan to drive. In the car, Lt. Briggs examines the mailbomb & determines that it can be detonated by a mailbox key or a timer. He then directs Harry on the freeway and draws his .357 Magnum Smith & Wesson Model 19 snubnose revolver and forces the inspector to disarm. Briggs then reveals himself as the leader of the death squad. He cites the traditions of frontier justice and summary executions, and says, “You’re a great cop, Harry, you had a chance to join the team but you’d rather stick with the system.” Callahan responds, "Briggs, I hate the goddamn system, but until someone comes along with some changes that make sense I'll stick with it." Unimpressed, Brigg tells Callahan "You're about to become extinct."

As Briggs forces Harry to drive toward the docks at gunpoint, he spots Grimes in the rear-view mirror, who is using his radio, shadowing them on his police bike. Callahan distracts Briggs by sideswiping a bus, then knocks him unconscious by repeatedly beating his head into the dashboard. During a protracted high-speed street chase, Harry tries to escape from Grimes while being fired upon, but then turns the tables and kills the pursuing rookie by hitting him head-on with his unmarked police car. He abandons the partially wrecked car and runs onto an old aircraft carrier in a military vessel graveyard as the remaining two vigilantes arrive and start shooting. The unarmed Callahan evades his pursuers within the darkened ship, but not before he beats Astrachan to death as the vigilante runs out of ammunition. Davis finds Astrachan's body and checks for any sign of breathing just before hearing Callahan attempting to start Red's motorcycle. Back on deck, Harry then rides Astrachan's motorcycle with Davis in pursuit. After a series of daring jumps between ships, the two run out of deck space. Callahan is able to dump his bike after a jump and avoid the deck's end, but Davis falls to his death.

Harry makes his way back to the car, but a bleeding Briggs gets the drop on Harry with a Colt Python. Rather than shoot Callahan, Briggs threatens to prosecute him for killing all three vigilante police officers. As the inspector is forced to exit the vehicle, he surreptitiously activates the timer on the mail bomb and tosses it in the back seat. As Briggs slowly drives away, the car explodes killing him. The final scene is a close-up of Callahan's face in front of the raging inferno as he comments, "A man's got to know his limitations", before he walks away.