It's always good to see Clint Eastwood hunting down a killer. His face is more cracked than a road map, his voice has more gravel than a prison work camp and he always gets his man. And ranking up there with a lot of his better films, "Blood Work" is a pretty solid thriller.
But it's a bit harder to stomach this time out (and the film makes no secret of this) because the man is so old.
Eastwood is 72 now and more power to him for still working hard and consistently in the movies. It doesn't matter -- there are parts in the film that are downright painful to watch due to his deteriorated physical state.
Scenes where he's getting his blood work done at a hospital are seriously grotesque. Not once, but twice, he gets some kind of probe stuck into his body through his collarbone area and it goes all the way down to his heart. It's only shown in an x-ray, but man, is it unsettling!
The most shocking scene in the movie isn't actually any of the murders or crime scenes, but the scene where Eastwood pulls his shirt up to get his heartbeat measured. His flabby gut, replete with a giant scar from heart surgery, cracks and several other marks of age, is not a pretty sight. Another scene in which the main female lead kisses him on his bare chest and stomach is similarly gag inducing.
But that's the point, I suppose. As retired FBI agent Terry McCaleb, Eastwood willingly portrays himself as a man way past his prime fighting against all odds health-wise to solve a murder case.
McCaleb's motivation for workingdespite his heart condition is a pretty strong one. After suffering a debilitating heart attack while chasing down the "Chuck Taylor killer," he is put out of commission and eventually given a heart transplant. The sister of the woman whose heart he was given, Graciella (Wanda De Jesus), tracks him down and tells him that her sister was murdered and asks him to find the killer. Riddled with guilt, McCaleb can't say no.
Getting help from his beach bum neighbor Buddy (Jeff Daniels), he uses all of his connections and investigative skills to uncover and connect the facts -- which lead him to a serial killer with a hidden interest in McCaleb.
Eastwood does a fine job as both director and star. A few moments drag here and there and the jokes aren't always on the money, but he's on target more often than not. In some scenes where he's physically active and he keels over due to chest pains, the viewer can almost feel it along with him.
Daniels gives an adequate performance as the sidekick. His performance didn't always work for me, but his laid-back attitude and few moments of comic relief are welcome.
I never read Michael Connelly's novel from which this film is adapted, but I did see a brief preview clip from it a week before it came out. From that clip, I took a guess at the identity of the killer and, believe it or not, I was right.
Which brings us to the film's main fault. It comes apart at the seams toward the end because the killer just isn't convincing. He's more jubilantly crazy than homicidally crazy. It's hard to buy that this guy is actually a killer -- the performance is just so uneven and awkward.
Keep in mind, I thought Brian Cox's interpretation of Hannibal Lector in "Manhunter" surpassed Anthony Hopkins'. I enjoyed Hopkins' work, but I never actually believed that he would rip people apart and eat them. If I'm not convinced that a killer in a movie represents an actual threat, it just doesn't work. Hopkins is too darn civil to make me afraid of him and the killer in "Blood Work," despite all the vile deeds he commits off-screen, is just too sweet and goofy for his own good.
Up until the overboard ending, the film is pretty tense, taut, well paced and effective. If Eastwood had gotten a better actor to play the killer, the movie would've been something to really get your blood worked up about.
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