Clint Eastwood, as director, has mastered the art of writing himself into his own films. In Pale Rider, for example, he knew just where to place himself in front of the camera and throughout his career he has delivered some great one-liners. Here in Blood Work, Eastwood delivers a performance that feels like all the characters he has played before but just a little older.
Eastwood plays Terry McCaleb, a retired F.B.I agent, who suffers from health problems after needing a heart transplant, following an incident we see right at the beginning of the film. Eastwood himself was 72 when he directed, produced and starred in Blood Work and having himself portray McCaleb immediately establishes a believability about the character.
McCaleb lives aboard a yacht and one day is visited by Graciella Jones whose sister has been murdered in a convenience store. In a seperate incident, a man has also been murdered whilst using an ATM and McCaleb is convinced the two are linked. These killings provide the platform for the screenplay to unfold in what will come to involve a Russian factory worker and ultimately a blood link. The police in the film view McCaleb as poking his nose in buisness that is no longer his concern but McCaleb has personal reasons of his own for wanting to get involved. Happy Valentines Day.
The screenplay is excellent and fluidly shifts between three ongoing plotlines. The investigation is obviously the main focus of the film and remains interesting and intriguing throughout the film but there is also the subplot of McCaleb's health with remains an issue until the very end as well as the developing (and perhaps unlikely) relationship that develops between Terry and Graciella.
There is good support from Jeff Daniels, Wanda De Jesus and Paul Rodriguez who all portray memorable characters but like most of Eastwood's films he steals the show on the performance front.
The story perhaps comes full circle twenty minutes too early. The mystery is solved but the film carries on as we see it at it's most Hollywood (although the film actually never comes anywhere close to falling into that Typical Hollywood Thriller mould) as the film climaxes with an action scene aboard a ship that didn't really have me caring about it half as much as I cared about the rest of the film. These scenes do however allow Eastwood's clever direction and the intelligent screenplay to shine once again as there is something of a lethargic nature to the sequence due the health of McCaleb.
Blood Work is though up there with Eastwood's best and of the nine films I've seen with him at the helm I'd say it is only better by two: Million Dollar Baby and Changeling. Eastwood is in his 80's now and is directing his best films in this period. His work in the noughties eclipses everything I've seen by him from the 70', 80's and 90's and with Letters From IwoJima and Flags of Our Fathers up next I'm sure I will continue to vouch for that statement.
The hyperbole surrounding Inception over the past two weeks has been nothing short of ridiculous. Flocks of people who don't really know what they are talking about keep on labelling Christopher Nolan's latest effort 'like da best film evvva'. It's release has seen in burst in at number three on the suspect and easily influenced IMDB Top 250 List, as fanboys around the world vote it a massive 10/10 whether they have seen the damn film or not. So is Inception the best film ever? Does it deserve to be number three on the list? Is it a 10/10? And are the comparisons of Nolan to legendary director Stanley Kubrick justified? No, no, no and um..no.
I was however massively looking forward to Inception. Despite his two Batman efforts leaving me feeling a little cold, I have liked what else I've seen by Nolan, namely Memento and The Prestige. And in a world where 3D is increasingly sapping any creativity out of mainstream cinema, Nolan is gaining a reputation as being a 'thoughtful' director. I'm also massively keen on films that take on dreamlike atmospheres or explore the nature of dreams in any way they see fit. How could a film billed as one about dreams within dreams within dreams possibly go wrong?
Leonardo Di Caprio stars as Dom Cobb, a professional dream stealer, who places himself in the dreams of others in order to steal ideas from them. Through his impressive work he is approached with a request to attempt 'inception' the art not of stealing an idea but of implanting one. It's a lot more technical and apparently a lot more lucrative. Dom's partner Albert (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) calls 'inception' impossible but Cobb ignores him and assembles his team. Ellen Page is hired as the architect to create the worlds that the dreamers will occupy. The job requires the implantation of an idea into the mind of Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy). That idea is that Fischer will want to break up the empire of his terminally ill father in order to stop the company from being a threat. A plan is formed and Nolan allows his characters to explain and carry out the complex operation in what becomes an increasingly confusing and multi-layered narrative as it heads towards its conclusion.
The film features an all star cast, some of whom I have already mentioned, but one that further includes Michael Caine, Marion Cotillard and more. Employment of such a cast is always dangerous as it can often lead to an absence of memorable performances and despite my love of Di Caprio, Gordon-Levitt and Page, they all fail to deliver. Like with his Batman films there isn't much in the way of an emotional attachment to any of the characters on show.
But the film's major problem is just how prosaic it is. My hopes for a film that genuine explores the nature of dreams, creating a dreamlike atmosphere in the process were never satisfied and instead Nolan presents us with what is actually a pretty standard heist film that eventually becomes your typical Summer Action Blockbuster. Only difference is is that Inception isn't a remake, a reboot or a sequel but a truly original screenplay that wants to share with us some interesting ideas but doesn't have the right man at the helm to do so. I appreciate the thought but I don't appreciate the product.
Perhaps on seconds viewing, knowing that this is predominantly an action film and nothing over and above an action film I'd enjoy it more but the criticism that Nolan has create a film that describes dreams as occurring too literally (thus not allowing for the fluidity and lack of logic that often have) still stands. The response is usually that this was never Nolan's intention and that he always wanted to make Inception an action film, but Inception was created entirely from scratch and it could have been about anything. Nolan choose to make it about dream exploration but then didn't truly carry this idea through in a way that seems correct.
On a positive note I really enjoyed the films score. It's big and booming and shares a similarity to another of the years films starring Leonardo Di Caprio, a.k.a. Shutter Island (and that's not the only thing the two films have in common). The special effects (all $160 million dollars of them) are also good most noticeably the zero gravity corridor scene but this and all the other effects are lessened by the fact that I had already seen them countless times before in the trailer. The film doesn't surprise us with any fresh visually dazzling moments not chosen for the trailer.
Despite my complaints Inception isn't another in film to suffer from 'third act syndrome'. It's not one that falls apart at any moment after building itself up to be something special. It's the entire focus of the film that was disappointment but it remains loyal to what Nolan wanted it to be throughout and it does prove that Nolan is one of the best when it comes to creating big action blockbusters. It's just a shame that he choose Inception to fall into that category.
On a certain level I did enjoy Inception. It's energetic and despite a reasonably lengthy running time it does whizz by, never letting you out of it's grasp. It's what I'd call an enjoyable cinematic experience. Take that statement however you will. It seems that Inception is this years Avatar.
