FILM CRITIQUE:
This rather small Eastwood movie shows the quiet side of Clint as a contemplative man who realizes that it is time to start showing his age and some maturity. While this vehicle is a nice start towards that end, be forewarned that you had better see the movie soon, because "Blood Work" has only received limited studio advertising and promotional support and this film will be lost amid the hoopla for all the other summer blockbuster
movies.

"Blood Work" is more about McCaleb reacting instead of acting. After all, the guy has one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel. Experiencing stress for the right reasons at the wrong time could all too easily give his body a reason to reject the transplant of that fresh new ticker. Dr. Fox huffs and frets, but we all know that nothing she can say will stop McCaleb from attempting to solve this crime.

At some point well before the denouement it will be easy for most film lovers to anticipate the ending of this movie. This does not, however, alter the enjoyment of seeing this film. How he gets there and watching the trip unfold is still very worthwhile.

While there are some scenes of violence and blood, this movie is not about the kind of rampaging violence common to Eastwood's earlier Dirty Harry movies or his Oscar winning "Unforgiven"(1992). By comparison, "Blood Work" is a rather leisurely, ponderous work more suited to an elderly, semiretired individual trying to recover from a heart transplant. There are several quiet, poignant moments with McCaleb pulling up his shirt in front of a mirror and contemplating that still painful scar running down the full length of his chest. And who wouldn't wonder about how much of that person came along with that new heart in his chest?

"Blood Work" lacks logical coherence in some scenes that I find rather irritating. For example, rather than pulling his gun out immediately (and also calling for backup help) in that first scene where he spies those bloody tennis shoes, he waits until he has chased the guy for about a mile and then he finally pulls his pistol out. For a while I was wondering whether or not he even had a gun on him. Afterwards, I was left wondering why it took so long for him to use it. Obviously, a necessary, but stupid and illogical, setup to the following story.

There are other, more irritating lapses in logic and filming that I can't go into here without giving too much of the mystery away. Suffice it to say that the serial killer acts in a way with the rather illogical presumption that others unknown to him will act in such a manner as to accomplish his own goals.

The major flaw in this movie is the romantic angle as how a 72 year old man with a bum ticker can still end up with some one as beautiful as Wanda de Jesus (Jimmy Smit's long time girlfriend). I would estimate her to be about 40 years younger than Eastwood. In this particular matter neither FBI agent McCaleb nor Eastwood is acting their age. It's not as if there aren't any beautiful women in their forties and fifties in Hollywood who would have loved to have played this role. Age the son about five or ten years and you're home free.

My gosh, I thought he was too old to play the wandering National
Geographic photographer in "Bridges of Madison County"(1995), where he was paired opposite Merryl Streep. Merryl Streep is almost old enough to be this girl's grandmother.

Furthermore, I find it rather difficult to believe a recent heart transplant patient being able to indulge in sexual activity. I wonder what Dr. Bonnie Fox would say about this if she knew... Clint may be good but I am not at all sure if he's that good.
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FILM SYNOPSIS:
Dirty Harry's swan song with a heart. A heart with a softer, more
feminine side. Well, perhaps that's because it actually IS a woman's heart! FBI agent Terry McCaleb ends up with a Mexican woman's heart after his own gave way during a chase after a serial killer who had been taunting him, and creating a media frenzy in the process, with his blood soaked messages near each corpse.

FBI agent Terry McCaleb specializes in profiling seemingly unsolvable cases involving serial killers, and his latest case with a killer who leaves signs drawn in blood with McCaleb's name on them is a real doozy.

At another late night crime scene, McCaleb spies a pair of blood
spattered sneakers through the crowd of reporters and television cameras, and, suspecting the serial killer to be wearing them, gives the chase that lands him in the hospital with a worn out heart.

Weeks pass and then a woman is killed in a convenience store holdup who happens to have the same rare blood type as McCaleb. The heart transplant is made and McCaleb convalesces with a knawing sense of guilt about the poor girl who had to die in order to save his own life, not to mention the poor kid down the hospital hall also waiting for a compatible heart of his own to become available.

Forced into retirement from the FBI because of his condition, McCaleb pokes around his boat at the marina, a boat which also serves as his home. He has few friends other than a fellow yacht club member, Buddy Noone (Jeff Daniels), who is living the lifestyle of the idle rich on a nearby boat.

One day a very attractive woman and a young boy show up on the dock next to his boat and ask to come aboard. It turns out that this woman, Graciella Rivers (Wanda de Jesus), is the sister of the woman who was murdered in the convenience store holdup. She is now left with that boy, her sister's son, and a heartfelt suspicion that some clues may have been missed in her murder. She preys on McCaleb's sense of guilt about the fact that he owes his life to her sister's untimely death to inveigle him into looking into the case to see if any new clues can be found.

McCaleb is not one to turn down a case no matter what the condition of his heart. However, he does decide not to stress his heart by doing any driving, so he walks down to Noone's boat and hires Buddy to be his chauffeur.

McCaleb's doctor, Bonnie Fox (Angelica Huston), does not take this news kindly as McCaleb is supposed to be in a state of complete rest in order for his heart transplant to take. Neither does the cop who had been on the case, Detective Ronaldo Arrango (Paul Rodriguez), who views McCaleb's new efforts not only as poaching on his turf but also an insult to his professionalism and his handling of the murder case.

McCaleb turns to an old girlfriend, Jaye Winston (Tina Lifford), who is now an executive in the sheriff's department, to get him the rap sheet on the Rivers' murder scene along with the security camera shots. He notices from the camera tapes that the good Samaritan who called 911 from the telephone outside the convenience store huddles over the body of the woman in a very strange, inexplicable manner. Something is not right, but at the moment McCaleb can't figure out what it is.

McCaleb also makes note of the fact that there was another murder of a young man at an ATM machine some two weeks earlier than the Rivers' murder at the Kang convenience store. He wonders if the same person killed both people, so he examines that security camera tape as well.

Digging deeper, he discovers a surprising commonality between these two murders. After all, his job as a FBI profiler has given him years of experience for sniffing out those oddball clues and connections that normal, plodding detectives like Arrango might easily have missed.