Review of Blood Work (2002) by Aaron B — 28 Aug 2011

Clint Eastwood is a very talented director, and Brian Helgeland wrote what might be my favorite movie (L.A. Confidential), but there are certainly much better films from either that you could spend a night with. Hell, there's a much better film from both, Mystic River, that you could watch. That said, Eastwood gives a good performance, and Wanda De Jesus is excellent as well. Paul Rodriguez, Jeff Daniels and even, dare I say it, Anjelica Huston kind of ruin the movie for me, though.

(SLIGHT ALMOST-SPOILER BELOW).

With this movie's pedigree, I overestimated it. I figured things out, but thought that this movie was too smart for my hunch and had to be setting the obvious solution up as a red herring. Clever bastards. Sadly, I was wrong. The solution as presented is dumb, predictable and unbelievable, and leaves a number of really rather major plot holes gaping.