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Review by Harvey Karten
2½ stars out of 4
Hollywood treats romances between people of a certain age
only gingerly. Rarely has a blockbuster dealt with an elderly,
retired law enforcement officer with a bad ticker who ignores his
doctor's advice and chases criminals as though he were a
rookie out to make a name for himself and get promoted. In
"Blood Work," the seventy-two year old Clint Eastwood, who
directs, produces and stars in this essentially routine crime
saga, not only gets to romance a woman some three decades
younger than he is (and she's the one who hits on him) but
succeeds in solving a case that the local ignorant cops
prematurely consider closed.
What saves "Blood Work" from being an egregious example
of a same ol' same ol' crime story is a plot machination that
scripted Brian Helgeland must have thought unusual enough
from Michael Connelly's novel. The law officer, formerly with
the FBI and now working on a crime without a license, has not
only had a serious heart attack which forced his exit from the
bureau but has received the heart of a young woman who was
brutally killed during a liquor-store robbery. Cops think the
motive of the ski-masked bandit, captured clearly on video, was
to avoid a life sentence if fingered by witnesses. Already a two
time loser, under California law, any witness convincing a jury
about the identity of a robber would send him up the river for
life. Better to kill all witnesses: what's there to lose?
But former agent Terry McCaleb (Clint Eastwood), a famous
FBI man who regularly captures headlines for his expert police
work, second-guesses himself, allowing us in the audience to
share with him the challenge of breaking the killer's code which
would yield the identity of the perp.
"Blood Work" takes us to the San Pedro, California scene of
an ATM murder in which McCaleb, believing a person in the
crowd of rubberneckers is the shooter, chases the man down
and surprisingly for his age is about to catch him. When a heart
attack foils the arrest, McCaleb is treated by cardiologist Dr.
Bonnie Fox (Angelica Huston), who puts him on a daily regime
of 34 pills and warns him to take things slow. When McCaleb is
petitioned by the sister of the dead woman, Graciela Rivers
(Wanda De Jesus), to bring the murderer to justice, he enlists
his neighbor in an adjacent boat, Buddy Noone (Jeff Daniels) as
a chauffeur as he proceeds through the southern Cal area to
enlist the help of his friends and is likewise shunned by the
envious precinct cop, Detective Arrange (Paul Rodriguez).
The chemistry between Eastwood and De Jesus is more than
satisfactory as McCaleb, with the help of a former buddy and
police officer Jaye Winston (Tina Lifford) pursue clues and get
surprising help from the dead woman's young boy, Raymond
(Mason Lucero). The road-and-buddy relationship between
Noone and McCaleb is amusing, the identity of the murderer
possibly guessed by some in the audience. But this is not a
conventional mystery but more of a character study of a not-yet-
over-the-hill peacemaker who will not go gently into retirement
but who persists doggedly in outsmarting the LAPD officials who
all too eagerly close the case before the real villain is found.
Eastwood, a legend since his opening roles in spaghetti
Westerns by Sergio Leone almost two-score years ago, had
moved into more mature, critically acclaimed films with the
opening of "Unforgiven" in 1992. "Blood Work," like Eastwood's
1992 breakthrough, deals with a man who comes out of
retirement, in that film as a hit man who needs one more score
to make some money. Unlike "Unforgiven," his current offering
lacks the exploration of morality and hypocrisy and despite fine
performances, a nice view of San Pedro Harbor, and a neat jazz
score by Lennie Niehaus, has heart but is not particularly
compelling or fresh.
Copyright © 2002 Harvey Karten
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out of 4
