director
Clint Eastwood
screenwriters
Larry Gross
Paul Brickman
Stephen Schiff
based
on the novel by
Andrew Klavan
producers
Clint Eastwood
Lili Fini Zanuck
cinematographer
Jack N. Green
music
Lennie Niehaus
editor
Joel Cox
cast
Clint Eastwood (Steve Everett)
Isaiah Washington (Frank Beachum)
Lisa Gay Hamilton (Bonnie Beachum)
James Woods (Alan Mann)
Denis Leary (Bob Findley)
Bernard Hill (Warden Plunkitt)
Diane Venora (Barbara Everett)
Michael McKean (Reverend Shillerman)
Michael Jeter (Dale Porterhouse)
Mary McCormack (Michelle Ziegler)
Francesca Fisher-Eastwood (Kate Everett)
mpaa rating: R
running
time: 127m
u.s.
release: 3/19/99
video
availability: VHS -
DVD
official
website
other clint
eastwood films
reviewed on this website:
- absolute
power
- blood
work
- midnight
in the garden
of good and evil
- million
dollar baby
- mystic
river
- space
cowboys
- unforgiven
|
Is
Clint Eastwood about ready to retire? His Oscar-winning Unforgiven
was, to these eyes, a pristine work of art and entertainment;
but that was also seven years ago, and since then, also to these
eyes, he has been sliding and coasting. The overlong and finally
mawkish A Perfect World, the decent but unnecessary Bridges
of Madison County, the mundane Absolute
Power, the too-leisurely Midnight
in the Garden of Good and Evil .... These are films for
grown-ups, with a contemplative pace to match, and regardless
of their flaws, they are honorable and rock-solid pieces of craftsmanship
-- hardly an inelegant moment in them. What they aren't is exciting.
Bidding farewell to his sixties, Eastwood has become an almost
stubbornly tame director, as if atoning for the bad taste of
his box-office reign as Dirty Harry.
Eastwood's new one as director-star, True Crime, isn't
nearly as phlegmatic as his last couple of efforts. Taking his
cameras into the offices of a fictional Oakland newspaper, Clint
gets a little buzz going, especially when he puts James Woods
(the editor in chief) and Denis Leary (news editor) in the same
room. When Clint, as chewed-up warhorse reporter Steve Everett,
joins them in the room, we forget whatever the movie's supposed
to be about. Woods is at his withering best; Leary, perhaps feeling
outgunned, reins himself in and plays his editor as borderline
mild-mannered -- the novelty of that is almost as much fun to
watch as Leary's usual ranting. I'll always remember Clint inviting
Denis Leary to punch him in the face -- it's one of those nice
moments for fans of both actors -- but I've already forgotten
most of the material that's supposed to be the plot's main motor.
And what's that? Oh, the usual beat-the-clock scenario. Frank
Beachum (Isaiah Washington) is on death row, scheduled for execution
in 12 hours, and he might be innocent of the murder he was convicted
for. Everett, with his "nose" for news and his need
to do something good with his life (he's just about womanized
his way out of his marriage), digs around and tries to find evidence
that someone else, not Frank, pulled the trigger on a pregnant
cashier clerk.
That isn't really what True Crime is about, though. Clint
Eastwood will be 70 next year, and he has a little daughter (Francesca
Fisher-Eastwood, who appears in the movie as Everett's daughter)
young enough to be his great-granddaughter. A scene in which
Everett gives his little girl a "speed zoo" trip --
rushing her through the zoo because he's on a deadline -- is
touching for reasons that have nothing to do with the plot. And
we see the condemned Frank Beachum saying a long goodbye to his
own daughter. The movie is about the pain of fathers who won't
live to see their little girls grow up, and who, whether because
of jail or work, can't spend what little time they have left
with their daughters.
Once I picked up on that, the plot didn't get less routine, but
everything around it got more telling. Everett, we see, fools
around with much younger women out of fear of his own mortality
(is that also why Clint has traditionally done likewise?). Meanwhile,
the story drifts away, and the movie is structured in a conventional
way that lets us know it won't end tragically (as, say, A
Perfect World did). There are no surprises -- no Primal
Fear revelation, no defeatist ending in which Everett's efforts
come to naught. (Some may register a bit of surprise that the
former Dirty Harry now comes down, in effect, against capital
punishment.) What keeps the movie alive is its subtext. It's
always interesting to read between the lines of Eastwood's recent
movies and see what's really on his mind, but I wish he'd be
a little more picky about his material. |
