Clint Eastwood has finally begun to act his age. After spending the past four decades doling out physical punishment to a host of transgressors and romancing dozens of significantly younger celluloid starlets, the 72-year old actor is just now settling into senior citizenship.
BLOOD WORK, directed by and starring Eastwood, is a solid if unremarkable picture. Stilted dialogue and a somewhat formulaic plot prevent it from being particularly notable. Still, it is fascinating to watch one of the all-time movie tough guys grow old before our eyes.
Eastwood is former FBI agent Terry McCaleb, a brooding rogue whose proficiency with crime scene analysis has made him a small-time celebrity. When we first meet McCaleb he is the central figure in the investigation of a string of grisly murders. The "Code Killer" so named because of the nine-digit calling card he leaves behind after each slaying is literally begging to be busted. Of late, the murderer has begun to use his victim's blood to inscribe each crime scene with the phrase "McCaleb Catch Me."
McCaleb tries to do just that, but an ill-fated foot chase ends with him on the ground, felled by a near-fatal heart attack. It takes two years, but his doctor, Bonnie Fox (a listless Anjelica Houston), has finally managed to find a heart from a donor who shares McCaleb's rare blood type. Post-op, he retreats to his home a boat docked in a Los Angeles marina and McCaleb's crime-fighting career is apparently over.
His short-lived respite ends when a sultry beauty named Graciella Rivers (Wanda De Jesus) drops by. Rivers' sister was recently killed in what appears to have been a random convenience store holdup and murder, and she wants McCaleb's help in solving the case. She feels like she has the right to ask the retired FBI man for assistance because she has determined that her sister's heart was used to replace McCaleb's worn-out ticker.
And then, well, you know the drill: McCaleb resists getting involved, but before long he and his "partner" an unemployed neighbor named Buddy Noone, played with measured goofiness by Jeff Daniels are retracing the killer's footsteps. McCaleb's frequent run-ins with LAPD detective Ronald Arrango (Paul Rodriguez) are the movie's only attempts at humor; the friction between the old-school lawman and the mouthy young cop is entertaining, but seems like an add-on, a bit of vaudeville to offset the film's noirish feel.
Eastwood is a director of note; yes, he is responsible for THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY, but he also directed the magnificent UNFORGIVEN as well as BIRD, the biopic of jazz legend Charlie Parker. And while he is solidly within his element here, something is not quite right; there is not a single memorable shot in the movie. As an actor, Eastwood remains a rare presence, but watching BLOOD WORK not long after seeing the Hughes' brothers' luridly fascinating FROM HELL also, as it happens, a film about a serial killer I can't help but feel like the old boy has lost his fastball.
This edition of BLOOD WORK has a few extras worth noting the short making-of documentary is moderately interesting but this is not the sort of film that benefits greatly from the DVD format. It is intricately plotted but neither audibly noir visually impressive and the sequence of the now-elderly Eastwood trying to run down a bad guy is best not seen at all.
Eastwood can be commended for making a competent movie, one in which he affords himself the chance to wear his age with a certain muscular grace. But BLOOD WORK is never better than workmanlike adequate and well-organized, but impossible to get too excited about.
LOGIN
REGISTER
RSS
HOME
