BLOOD WORK Review

I liked BLOOD WORK in the way that I like B-mysteries. The lesser Rathbone HOLMES flicks, the Sidney Toler CHARLIE CHANS and the Peter Lorre MR MOTOs. It isn’t tough enough to make it into the Noir categories… Nor is it mean enough to fall into the realm of wish fulfillment revenge mysteries…. Also it doesn’t have the pulsing heart of a good Italian Giallo mystery. Nope… this is a B-mystery.

Pure HARDY BOYS, MATLOCK, NANCY DREW, PERRY MASON sort of thing. There is nothing to really make you go crazy in love with the film and nothing to really make you hate it.

Well, almost nothing.

Paul Rodriguez should never work in a film again. He needs to be banned into the realm of Basic Cable 2pm sitcom hell. He is excruciatingly unfunny. I mean, as I sat there I wanted Eastwood to jerk his gun and just shoot him dead. That was about 2 minutes into the film. When I say he’s bad, he’s bad in the way that Jackie Mason was bad in CADDYSHACK 2. Remember how bad that was? Do you remember the migraine he gave you? The years of therapy bad that a truly awful character can give you.

How bad is he?

Well in his few minutes of time in this film, spread out from beginning to end, he is nearly responsible for me completely wanting to just not write about this film. You see… I dug just about everything else in the movie. Didn’t love it all, but dug it. Thought, heeeeey, this is kinda fun. But that cancerous fucking inoperable lump of excretable material just can’t be jettisoned.

I like Eastwood’s Terrell McCaleb – a career FBI Profiler that works with the police on serial killers and extreme cases. Early on he has a heart attack and is forced into retirement, having never caught his final bad guy. The film really gets underway with a cardiologist taking tissue samples of his Heart to make sure that there is no infection, because he’s had a transplant. This is Anjelica Huston. All she really does in this flick is play the concerned Doctor that tells Terrell not to do anything that he’s doing.

Wanda De Jesus plays the sister of the lady whose heart is beating inside Eastwood, and she wants Eastwood to find her murderer. And basically that’s the film. He’s got to find the murderer.

Now what I like is the investigation aspect of this film. Eastwood putting a case together. This isn’t like DIRTY HARRY where by torture and brutality Clint can get the answers. Here he actually does old fashioned leg work, clue following, analysis, lateral thinking and working the case.

Now – my favorite character in the film is Jeff Daniels dumb goofy slacker lazy marina bum Buddy, that buddies up with Clint and helps him get around. He’s living off his dad’s checks and is doing these favors for Clint in trade for cases of beer. There’s something pure about that. He digs being an investigator with Clint, but he’s still a loser and not very good at much of anything. Good fun goofy character.

Now, personally this is a movie I wouldn’t necessarily pay to see in a theater. There isn’t anything particularly cinematic about the film… Personally this is one that I imagine will play just fine on Cable some night. In fact, it may even play like a revelation in that format. If you stumble into it with no money and very little knowledge about what is happening in the film… Well… that’s the way to see this flick.

I walked in with zero expectations and moderately enjoyed myself. I didn’t walk in expecting to see the UNFORGIVEN of Clint’s Crime/Cop flicks. I hadn’t heard much praise or negativity aimed at it, but that kinda made me expect for it to totally suck… and while Paul Rodriguez does totally suck, the rest of the film is pretty solid.

I like Eastwood playing closer to his age and fragility. I like the mystery and I wasn’t trying to figure it out, I wanted to watch Eastwood do that. I heard one audience member comment on their way out of the theater that they figured it out 20 minutes in. Wow… Well, I’m sure they must’ve hated it. I find on these mysteries that it doesn’t matter if I figure out who did something… it is important that the character in the film find that out and it is that character’s journey of discovery that makes the mystery worthwhile.

I should also warn you off the Talk Backs below if you are interested in seeing this movie, some bastard could spoil the mystery in a headline, so I recommend not even looking at the headlines. Personally though… I’d hold onto your money and check it out on Video or TV, I really didn’t find it compelling enough to recommend for people to pay to see.

I hope Clint makes a significant film again, it has been too long.