Blood Work

Blood Work, a mostly forgotten thriller from 2002, is the last true genre film Clint Eastwood made before transitioning to Hollywood's elder statesman of Oscar baiting. Eastwood, who directs and stars, is Terry McCaleb, a former FBI agent recovering from a recent heart transplant. McCaleb, who should be recovering in peace on his boat, is pulled into one last job by the sister of the woman whose heart he received (Wanda de Jesus). Eastwood barrels into this crickety procedural with surprising sincerity. Actors deliver their lines with strained voices and the gunplay is filmed in a straightforward utilitarian style. This sincerity makes Blood Work's ample use of clichés all the more startling, as Eastwood gives us both a hot-tempered Latino detective (Paul Rodriguez) and a wisecracking slacker sidekick (played by Jeff Daniels, who is closer to Dumb and Dumber here than The Squid and the Whale). Most troubling is Eastwood's need to inject sexual tension into every scene between himself and a "strong woman," of which there are three: Angelica Huston's stubborn doctor, Tina Lifford's detective (a former acquaintance) and the aforementioned de Jesus, who plays it especially sultry for a grieving sister. Despite its flaws, Blood Work is still enjoyable, if one's expectations are suitably lowered. It's refreshingly free of the shallow deconstructivism found in Eastwood's later Gran Torino; it also avoids the overwrought self-importance of his recent prestige films. In terms of documentary value, Blood Work is one of the last of its kind: a low-stakes crime procedural made for adults. The market for this type of reliable storytelling has moved to network television, where they're rarely anchored by an actor as commanding as Eastwood, who, even in his old age, looks pretty scary holding a shotgun. The special features on this Blu-Ray are pretty basic. They include a bland "making of" featurette consisting mostly of Eastwood praising his cast and the cast praising Eastwood. There's also a feature called "A Conversation in Spanish with Clint Eastwood, Wanda de Jesus and Paul Rodriguez," which is actually a Spanish-language promotional piece made for the Latino market, wherein de Jesus and Rodriguez discuss the movie in Spanish, but switch to English when Eastwood joins in. (Eastwood can, however, speak Italian fluently from his days in Sergio Leone films.) This is only worth a purchase from the bargain bin.