Blood Work

[I'm no Ebert]

CLINT IS STILL GOOD, BUT SUFFERS FROM WOODY ALLEN SYNDROME (OLD MAN-YOUNG BABE) You've seen it before. Detective comes back one more time. Deals with hostile guy who doesn't like to be interfered with. Meets younger woman who finds 72 year old scared up man too hot to resist. Despite all of this, there is a good feel about this movie which reminds me of going downtown in Chicago in the 60's and 70's to see the likes of McQueen and Bronson in their prime. This is not a great movie, but it doesn't need explosions, aliens, excessive rap, and sex for sex sake. It tell a basic story witha degree of style. It's not so much a who done it. It's more "When will and how will they be stopped?" As for Clint; he still thinks he's 35 like Woody Allen, so he can bed down a much younger woman. Come on Clint! Paul Newman is great, but he doesn't have to glorify himself and feed his ego. His manhood is self-evident. Aside from Eastwood Syndrome, he puts in a good performance in a serviceable crime story. Just put down your 9 or 10 bucks and ask yourself "Do I feel lucky?" If you're looking for Dirty Harry, you're out of luck.

[pmw]

Just moved this thread to the "General Film Forum".
Sounds like an interesting flick. Anjelica Huston, Jeff Daniels
and Clint Eastwood. Pretty impressive lineup.

[johnwstiles]

Not Dirty Harry, maybe, but close, and worse than you think. A retired FBI agent, and crime scene detective par excellence. He's good with a shotgun, better with a thirty-eight, and irresistible to the ladies. One can only hope the variations on the misunderstood and mistreated cop theme are finite. Reminds me of an editorial in Sunday's paper. A policeman confesses his anger toward those in society critical of law enforcement. He is particularly upset with those in the media who "overblow" police misconduct. A good hearted fellow, no doubt, but if he wants to be the poster child for the racially unbiased, excessive force eschewing law enforcement officer we are to take for the norm, it concerns me more than a little when he goes to such lengths to inform the public how hard it is to restrain his anger toward those of us who no longer see every policeman as agents of our protection and service. But I digress.

Terry McCaleb's (Eastwood) transplanted heart becomes available when a young Hispanic mother of the year is senselessly gunned down in convenience store. Her sister Graciella (Wanda de Jesus) prevails upon our retired hero to come out of retirement barely sixty days after his transplant, and to the horror of his doctor (Anjelica Huston), to catch her sister¹s killer. Her sisters killer turns out to be a serial killer, not unlike the one McCaleb was chasing when he went down with the coronary that necessitated the transplant that came from the mother who was killed at about the same time McCaleb's time was about to run out. Sense a loop here? The two questions that sustain (albeit on a rickety life support system) this plot are, who is the killer and is McCaleb connected? We know the answer about two minutes in and can't believe it takes the lugs on screen so long to catch up. The fact that the killer speaks into the surveillance cameras after he commits his murders offered insufficient incentive to the dolts on the case to bring in a lip reader. Honestly. Things start to progress, though, when McCaleb brings KRISPY KREME donuts to the cops on the case. The three of them actually sit around the interrogation room chowing down on KRISPY KREMES for a full minute without any dialogue. Sometime in the last few years I had to start watching Coca Cola commercials before the previews and now this!?! But I digress.

The script is as bad as it gets. "I'll just see where (dead sisters) heart leads me," and "everything that was good in her is in that boy of hers" are actual lines from the script. No kidding. On page 132 of the screenplay you will find, "two guys sneak on board the boat in the middle of the night and McCaleb is awakened. He turns to Graciella (who waited until the second date and her nephew was asleep ten feet away in the next bunk to sleep with McCaleb) and in an ordinary speaking voice says, "stay here, someone's on the boat, I'm going to check it out."

Eastwood has acquired sufficient gravitas over the years to make this thing barely watchable while Jeff Daniels as marina mate and ne'er do well provides the only humor. That includes what was probably meant to be humor from an awful Paul Rodriguez as a bitter LAPD cop. "You better get an ass transplant because I'm going to tear you a new one," is another pathetic snippet of dialogue from this mess. The correct colloquialism here refers not to ass but a more specific part of the posterior. Not that there is anything wrong with it per se, but was the screenplay written by someone for whom English is a second language?

[Ansonm]

You just tore that film a new elbow. Is that the right colloquialism?

Sounds pretty awful. Any chance that it was supposed to be "bad" in the sense that Eastwood and a B-script make for some pretty funny stuff? That Krispee Kreme scene is the kind that would make me leave the theater in disgust and head on down to...Krispee Kreme. This product placement has to stop.

Thanks for taking the time to review it. I was wondering whether to see it or not.

[fuzzy_nolan]

I haven't actually seen this film yet because it hasn't been released yet in Australia, but it seems to be representative of Clint Eastwood's gradual decline (at least in acting anyway).

It's a pity too, although he's 70 odd years old now, I'd like to see him in better films. Since Unforgiven, the only film which has come close to offering a decent vehicle for Eastwood has been Space Cowboys. I'm not saying it was a fantastic movie, but it offered Eastwood (as well as James Garner, Donald Sutherland and Tommy Lee-Jones) the opportunity for a return to form. This return didn't last long.

I just hope he manages to squeeze out another quality movie before he retires and/or kicks the bucket.

[SinjinSB]

Glad to see I wasn't the only one who thought the Krispy Kreme scene was laughable.

Blood Work (2002) - **1/2
This movie starts out with the makings of a good mystery. Unfortunately as it unfolds it gets a bit sloppy. Clint's acting was good as always, but I think that's his strength and not sitting in the director's chair. It's highly watchable and as long as expectations aren't too high, you probably won't be too disappointed. There was a bit of product placement in the movie...the Krispy Kreme scene was just a little too obvious for a non-parody...I was laughing outloud at how blatant it was.