Go ahead, make my day

This is the famous catchphrase spoken by Clint Eastwood’s character, Police Inspector ‘Dirty Harry’ Callahan, in the movie Sudden Impact (1983). Callahan points his hand gun at a hoodlum who is holding a waitress hostage in a coffee bar as he utters these chilling words, daring the hoodlum to carry out the threat to the waitress. It is sometimes misquoted as ‘Go ahead, make my day punk’ but Callahan never utters these words in any of the ‘Dirty Harry’ movies. When the movie Sudden Impact was released in Italy, it was titled Go Ahead, Make My Day, Corragio, Fatti Ammazzere in Italian, which remains a catchphrase in Italy to this day. Speaking out against tax increases in 1985, President Ronald Reagan warned, “I have my veto pen drawn and ready … and I have only one thing to say to the tax increasers. Go ahead, make my day.” Reagan, a one-time movie actor himself, was fond of using movie quotes, see also May the force be with you.