Movie Review
by Jason Kaufman

People looking for a good time at the movies rarely hit the multiplex to take in the year's new death-penalty drama. Laughs and happy endings usually aren't in the cards and watching lethal injections is about as exciting as TV shows about bass fishing (Hollywood needs to bring back firing squads or the chair in a hurry). Other than the recent Dead Man Walking, which had electric wildcard Sean Penn in top form, most don't have anything groundbreaking to offer. Unless you think that Sharon Stone in unflattering prison garb (Last Dance) or white supremacist Gene Hackman ordering Eskimo Pies for his last meal (The Chamber) are breaking dramatic boundaries.

But Clint Eastwood could care less that death-penalty dramas aren't the rage. In fact, he rarely cares about any of Hollywood's rules. Tell the man that old folks can't carry an action flick and he'll shove In the Line of Fire up your ass. Tell him the western is a washed up genre and he'll grab an Oscar for Best Picture with Unforgiven. It's not like he's always right. Tell him that you can't make a decent film out of a monumental best seller and he'll prove you right with a clumsy version of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Regardless, the actor/director works at his own pace, making the films he wants to make and box office hits or not, he's still a genuine icon in a town where genuine is as common as a real set of breasts.

In True Crime, Eastwood directs himself as Steve Everett, a washed up newspaper reporter basically killing time at the Oakland Tribune, sleeping with his editor's wife (we journalists aren't paid much, but we manage to find some perks), and trying to keep himself off the wagon. Everett isn't much different from any of the other washed up characters Eastwood has played over the past ten years. With bitterness (or acid reflux) in his heart, a constipated look on his face and everyone counting him out, he's a hero wrapped in a loser.

The actor gets his umpteenth chance at redemption when a hot reporter whom Everett lives for hitting on is killed in a car accident the night before she's supposed to cover the final day in the life of death row inmate Frank Beachum (an intense Isaiah Washington). Her demise is a tragedy that it takes everyone in the close-knit Tribune office about, oh, five seconds to get over. And once he realizes that he'll never get to sexually harass her again, Everett is assigned the human-interest story in her place. But the old snoop would rather find out whether Beachum really shot a pregnant grocery store clerk dead six years earlier. Within ten minutes of working on the story, he's already figured out that Beachum is innocent. Where was he all that time when Beachum was appealing his case? In the name of edge-of-your-seat drama, Everett sets out in a race against the clock to bring the truth to light before Beachum is given the IV from hell.

The fact that we've seen this all before and will see it again – whether in a TV movie of the week or a rerun of The Practice (which nailed the subject to perfection last year) – would be enough to send you off begging Loews Theaters for a refund. But Clint screws with you by slowing down the tempo. While Eastwood's character begins to uncover the truth in this twelve-hour period, Eastwood, the director, wisely decides to take us through the standard, slow-paced rhythms of the day, whether it's giving money to the homeless man on the street, driving in his car listening to jazz (a classic Clint staple) or telling the editor-in-chief of the paper that the City Editor's wife is a good lay. Yes, the clock is ticking and Everett is well aware of it, but first the man needs his cup of coffee, Camel cigarette and a bit of locker room talk. Mess with that and the human-interest story will never see the Metro Section of tomorrow's paper.

As a director, Eastwood is often like that elderly teacher in high school who walks slowly through the halls and stretches out every sentence he utters. Sure you want to make fun of him and call him an old fart, but you realize that even with his social-security-collecting qualities, the man is really smarter and quicker than anyone else in the room. So, you keep your mouth shut.

Notoriously low key on the set, Eastwood lets that calm, Lazy Boy mentality work to his advantage in a race against the Rolex thriller. Conversations with his editor-in-chief (an enjoyable, adrenalized James Woods, who continues to prove he can play a slimy horn-dog to perfection) unfold at a realistic pace. While Beachum freaks out watching the final hours of his life dissolve, Everett races his kid around in a stroller in a game of "speed zoo." And when Everett gets the chance to interview witnesses that could unlock the key to Beachum's innocence, he doesn't write down one single word. He just gives them the Clint scowl. It gives True Crime some true character that's a nice change from the latest law dramas.

But a death-penalty film is still a death-penalty film and that means spending time in the prison. And Eastwood, feeling the need to stretch out scenes, gives too much cell for an audience's own good. By the time you hear that he's eating his last meal (steak and fries, a nice choice), you're happy that he'll soon be on his way and you'll be out in the free world again.

Perhaps Eastwood notices this too. He spends the last third of the film speeding up the action with dull humor and a needless car chase. Everett manages to turn back to the bottle, drive drunk, break into people's homes and run from the police. Okay, so Clint wants his characters to have faults. But all of this bad behavior makes it seem like the state is executing the wrong guy. I won't spill whether Beachum meets his maker (I'd say, chances are 50/50 he dies). But whether they flick the switch or not, the ending is predictable enough that it makes next week's 90210 developments seem more Earth shattering.

What starts out as a solid page-turner of a movie winds up having an end that's hardly readable. Despite this, True Crime is still more passable than many of the suspense thrillers out there, because of the care given by the director. Some might even think the long stretches of dialogue are more indie-minded. All you can do when the climax comes is to stare at Clint the way he stares down everyone else. At the end of his long day, when he hopefully will have saved a man's life and his own career, all you really want to do is give him a glass of Metamucil so he can get that constipated look off his face.