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Clint Eastwood works, on screen and off
[Photo: Warner Bros. ]
In Blood Work, Wanda DeJesus plays Graciela Rivers, the love interest for Clint Eastwood’s aging Terry McCaleb. She’s the sister of the murder victim who donated McCaleb’s heart after his heart attack, and the one who persuades McCaleb to pursue the killer. |
By STEVE PERSALL, Times Film Critic
© St. Petersburg Times
published August 8, 2002
Eastwood does it again, playing a flinty but tender-hearted FBI profiler in a film he directs. As a good old-fashioned detective film with a touch of romance, Blood Work satisfies.
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Hearing Mel Gibson recently make excuses for why he hasn't directed another movie since Braveheart should make moviegoers glad that we have Clint Eastwood. You won't catch him complaining that he hasn't found material worth his attention. Eastwood routinely makes movies that are worth ours.
Blood Work is the 23rd film directed by Eastwood, by far the highest count from anyone since talkies who's primarily famous as an actor. (Woody Allen, a comic-turned-writer-turned filmmaker, doesn't quite count.) Like many other Eastwood films, it's a solid effort, satisfying throughout. Audiences know when they leave a Clint Eastwood movie that they haven't been played cheaply.
The film is based on a popular novel by Michael Connelly, a former Los Angeles Times crime reporter now living in Tampa. As a movie, Blood Work is one of those mysteries in which it's easy to guess who did it, but the motivation is just imaginative enough to provide a nice surprise. Above all, it's refreshingly mature entertainment with no intention of catering to the almighty youth market. Old-fashioned feels pretty good around this time of the summer.
Eastwood stars as Terry McCaleb, an aging FBI profiler on the trail of a serial killer when the story begins. McCaleb almost nabs the suspect before suffering a heart attack that ends his career. Two years and a heart transplant later, McCaleb is contacted by Graciela Rivers (Wanda DeJesus), sister of the murdered woman who donated that heart. Without legal authority, and against the wishes of his doctor (Anjelica Huston), McCaleb sets out to find the sister's murderer, who may be linked to those unsolved serial killings.
Blood Work is a much more successful character study than a whodunit. At age 72, Eastwood uses every crease on his face and creak in his bones to portray a formerly energetic man getting used to slowing down. While other films this summer have trumpeted new kinds of action heroes, McCaleb is old school and just plain old. Eastwood wheezes and grimaces his way through McCaleb's clues and palpitations, growling at "the book" and routinely showing up a feisty L.A. detective (Paul Rodriguez).
Clint Eastwood stars in Blood Work as Terry McCaleb, an FBI profiler who is sidelined by a heart attack but comes back to work against his doctor’s advice and without legal authority to pursue a murderer.
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There is a romance, dictated by tradition, but even that seems a bit smarter that usual. Rather than the extreme May-December pairings allowed superstars, Eastwood chose the 40-ish, maturely lined DeJesus to connect with McCaleb. The age difference isn't as distracting, and their initial flickers of grown-up mutual affection lead to nicely muted passion and contentment. Graciela's young son also takes a shine to McCaleb, lending a degree of tenderness to the gumshoe's grit.
Screenwriter Brian Helgeland trimmed Connelly's book to the essentials, then Eastwood the director gives them time to breathe. Note the scene when McCaleb brings donuts to Rodriguez's cop, the pauses that convey stubbornness, grudging respect and some kind of history. There is purpose to Jeff Daniels' chummy turn as the hero's houseboat neighbor, and a hint of McCaleb's past romance with a detective (Tina Lifford). Huston's scenes remind us how close her patient is to the edge, rather than making her just another suspect, as other filmmakers would choose. Blood Work, like Insomnia, is more concerned with the hunter than the hunted, so when those roles are reversed it matters.
Some day, film historians will remember Eastwood as a screen icon and the guy who won an Oscar for directing Unforgiven. But the best measure of his filmmaking talent will be those respectful adaptations of novels like The Bridges of Madison County and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, the carefully crafted shocks of Play Misty for Me and the elegiac tones of Bronco Billy and Honkytonk Man. None of those movies made much money, yet each of those qualities figures into Blood Work. And that, dear moviegoers, is the sign of a brave heart.
Blood Work
- Grade: B-plus
- Director: Clint Eastwood
- Cast: Clint Eastwood, Wanda DeJesus, Jeff Daniels, Paul Rodriguez, Anjelica Huston, Tina Lifford
- Screenplay: Brian Helgeland, based on the novel by Michael Connelly
- Rating: R; violence, profanity
- Running time: 110 min.
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