Recently I've considered drastically negatively re-appraising Clint Eastwood's work, both directorially and as a thespian, as a knee-jerk reaction to his constant defense of the more racially-bigoted face of conservative America, but because of what his work has meant to me as a cinephile over the years, plus in tribute to everyone else's work involved in this film, particularly director Don Siegel's, that simply wouldn't be fair.
As well, you're basically getting, boiled down in its 103-minute timespan, 45 years after the fact, the main dilemma facing the USA. Whose rights are more important--the good guys' or the bad guys'? If they're equal, should they be considered equal, and what does that mean to the law enforcement and judicial systems?
Quite simply, THE most important American-made film of the past 50 years. NOT my very favourite (that's '2001: A Space Odyssey'), but the most significant.
And it hasn't aged a single day because of it.