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Clint Eastwood does a Dirty Harry again
In his new film, Blood Work
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Arthur J Pais
In one of the most nail-biting scenes in recent films, Terry McCaleb (Clint
Eastwood), a top FBI agent chases a young suspect through the dark alleys of Los Angeles. McCaleb tears through the street corners with a determination that had made Eastwood famous (and controversial) in Dirty Harry and many other films about three decades ago.
But this time, in the movie Blood Work that hits over 2,000 cinema houses in America on Friday, we also see McCaleb trip and fall several times, and then suffer a heart attack.
McCaleb is far more vulnerable today than the gutsy cops and private detectives Eastwood had played three decades ago, not only because of his ailing heart but also of his age.
Two years after the heart attack, we see him nursing a new heart and restoring the boat, which he has converted into a home. He is certainly not looking for any excitement. When Graciela Rivers, a total stranger, asks him to investigate her sister Gloria's murder, he wants to shut the door on her. But when she tells him that the new heart beating in his chest is Gloria's, McCaleb changes his mind.
As we see him getting ready to go after the killer, who happens to be cunning and demonic beyond the ordinary imagination, we also see Eastwood play a character far removed from ones in the movies he had made famous in the 1960s and 1970s.
Those who have watched Eastwood’s career over the decades also know that the actor and filmmaker who once paraded the concept of vigilantism and unbridled police power in Dirty Harry and several other movies has steadily emerged in his films as a humanist.
Last year, Eastwood, 72, still one of the few bankable stars and filmmakers in Hollywood, chose to make a movie out of Michael Connelly’s riveting novel.
Blood Work is not just a good detective yarn. It is also about suddenly forged friendships, sharp pangs of conscience and a desire to do good against numerous odds.
In recent years, Eastwood has taken up best-selling novels such as Absolute Power and True Crimes to be made into movies. These novels do not celebrate authority or pay homage to the powerful.
On the other hand, they question authority.
In Absolute Power, based on David Baldacci’s bestseller, Eastwood looked at corruption at the highest level that involves an adulterous President and his
attempt to hide the tragedy that befalls his mistress. Absolute Power was a medium range hit. Then in True Crimes, which bombed at the box-office, Eastwood took up another bestseller, this by Andrew Klavan, which passionately questioned the justice of capital punishment.
Eastwood, who is a Republican, has often shown that on certain issues such as death penalty, he will distance himself from Republicans (as well as the Democrats) who support it.
In the movie, Eastwood played an insufferable journalist who reluctantly lets himself into the story of a young inmate charged with the murder of a young pregnant woman. The accused has repeatedly declared his innocence. His only hope from the death chamber is Steven Everett (Eastwood) who has just a day
or so to help the 'murderer' from the gallows. In fighting a seemingly hopeless battle, Everett is also looking for personal redemption.
And now in Blood Work, Clint Eastwood is championing small people --- a Mexican woman and the young son of her murdered sister --- who hope for justice despite official stonewalling and apathy.
There is hardly any Hollywood filmmaker as old as Eastwood who takes up challenging subjects --- and make them work, for most part, on the screen and at the box-office.
True, an Eastwood does movie not make a huge profit. Absolute Power, for instance, grossed about $100 million worldwide. And last year, Space Cowboys, an adventure involving several old characters, roped about $140 million worldwide.
Yet Eastwood films hardly lose money. On the other hand, most make decent profits. The reason is simple: Eastwood is known to be one of the most methodical and frugal filmmakers in America While on an average a star-studded Hollywood film costs about $70 million, Eastwood makes his movie for about $45 million.
Blood Work, a slow moving but engrossing melodrama which also looks into the minds of obsessive men, could again prove that Eastwood is a rare Hollywood success story.