Eastwood's 'Blood Work' is no-nonsense filmmaking

By Marshall Fine
The (Westchester, N.Y.) Journal News

BLOOD WORK (Rated R for graphic violence, profanity) Three and One-Half Stars (Good-to-Excellent) Michael Connelly's thriller gets a strong telling from Clint Eastwood, who plays a retired FBI agent seeking the killer of the person whose heart he received in a transplant. Starring Clint Eastwood, Jeff Daniels, Anjelica Huston. Directed by Clint Eastwood, Warner Bros., 105 minutes.

Some may argue that Eastwood is too old to play Terrill McCaleb, the retired FBI agent at the center of this story. Eastwood, who looks a good 10 years younger than he is, has the vitality to be plausible as someone only two years removed from a law-enforcement job, cut down by a severe heart problem. Though the book's hero is in his early 40s, the resonance remains the same: a lifelong man of action, whose own body has done what law-breakers were never able to.

As he chases down a serial killer, McCaleb has a heart attack and collapses. The suspect escapes, though not before McCaleb wounds him. The story then jumps forward two years, where it finds McCaleb living on his boat in a marina near Los Angeles. He is a post-operative heart-transplant recipient, having nearly died before a heart became available to save his life.

His forced retirement is interrupted by a woman, Graciella Rivers (Wanda De Jesus), who walks on to his boat uninvited. She hands him a photograph of her sister, saying that the woman was a murder victim in a convenience store robbery and that the police have stopped investigating after running out of leads. She asks for his help, though McCaleb protests that he is retired.

Then Graciella drops the bomb: It is her sister's heart that McCaleb received in his transplant. This changes everything for McCaleb. He views himself as the beneficiary of an act of evil, something he spent his whole career battling.

When McCaleb decides to look into the matter, however, he runs into all kinds of opposition: from the headstrong cops who feel the former fed is making them look bad and from his doctor (Angelica Huston), who fears that he is endangering his own recovery by taking on too much.

The mystery itself is a compelling one, pulling McCaleb back into a case he had given up on. But Eastwood's real accomplishment here is the creation of this character, whose seemingly robust presence belies his own fragile state. Eastwood's sometimes surly squint can't mask the physical (and psychological) pain of a man still recuperating from having his heart replaced.

Thankfully, screenwriter Brian Helgeland (who won an Oscar for "L.A. Confidential") doesn't stomp too hard on the notion that McCaleb is being guided by the spirit of the woman whose heart he received. And, while the film retains the book's romantic storyline, it is understated and agreeable.

Helgeland also streamlines Connelly's story to retain the essential elements and, if anything, make it a more interestingly twisted tale. Connelly aficionados may be upset at the liberties that Helgeland and Eastwood take but the heart of the story — the pun is intentional — remains the same, as do the emotions it deals with.

Eastwood may still be casting himself in love scenes with women half his age (a common mistake for aging movie stars) but he at least manages to look chagrined about it and keeps that part of the film in the background. He's more interested in portraying a man at an unhappy turning point in his life, when he suddenly realizes that he may not be able to do what needs to be done.

Lean and to the point, "Blood Work" is a step up from the last couple of Eastwood efforts, with a stronger plot and a more intriguing character. If it's not flashy, it also has nary an ounce of phoniness to it; it's no-nonsense filmmaking from start to finish.

Rated R for graphic violence, profanity.