A heart is heart of the case in 'Blood Work'

Blood Work (2002)
Starring: Clint Eastwood, Jeff Daniels, Wanda De Jesus, Anjelica Huston, and Paul Rodriquez
Director: Clint Eastwood
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

Retired FBI serial killer profiler Terry McCaleb (Eastwood) is still recovering from a heart transplant, when he learns that his new heart belonged to a murder victim who may have been killed specifically so McCaleb could get a new heart. At the risk of his health, and very life, he sets about trying to solve the mystery.


"Blood Work" is a fairly predictable crime thriller that slips to the low end of average by a plot and characters that move more slowly than the observant audience member when it comes to solving the mystery of the film on the one hand, and that on the other takes some fairly spectacular leaps of logic that will leave those who like playing along with the detective going "Huh?! How did he get THAT conclusion?"

It is further hampered by a typical, utterly unbelievable Hollywood-type "old man scores with hot chick"-type sexual encounter. (Wanda De Jesus' character must have been REALLY hard up to want to hop in the sack with craggy old McCaleb... or just really, REALLY slutty.)

The acting is pretty good, and there's some very creative and effective photography and lighting in the film, but most other elements needed to make it a worthwhile picture are substandard. The end result is a film that's okay, but not worth going out of your way for.

Sherlock Holmes as action hero

Sherlock Holmes (2009)
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law, Rachel McAdams, Mark Stone, Eddie Marsan, William Houston and Kelly Reilly
Director: Guy Ritchie
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

Sherlock Holmes (Downey) and his sometimes-reluctant colleague Dr. Watson (Law) most solve the mystery of a Satanist (Stone) who has seemingly returned from the dead to continue a killing spree. Meanwhile, Holmes old adversary and lover Irene Adler (McAdams) has reappeared on the scene with a mysterious agenda of her own.


The most famous of all consulting detectives gets the big budget, CGI-generated "stunts" action movie treatment in a film with actors who give far better performances than this flabby movie probably deserved.

Some reviewers have been upset by the "action movie" feel this film has, even commenting that Holmes shouldn't be an action hero. I don't quite agree with that sentiment, as Holmes always seemed like a man of action and quite willing to resort to violence when necessary. What annoys me is the pointlessness of much of the action and some of the stupidity of it.

I don't know whether it's the gigantic budget he had to work with here, or whether he's devolved as a director over the past ten years, but Guy Ritchie seemed to have a far better sense for how to make an exciting movie when he did "Snatch" and "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" in the late 1990s.

The flow of the movie, and therefore the attention to the viewer, is repeatedly disrupted by pointless side treks and plot detours, such as a long sequence with Holmes in a boxing match (a very stupid thing for a genius like Holmes to engage in, even if he is a thrill-seeker), or one where he is tricked by Irene Adler and ends up handcuffed and naked in bed (an scene mostly there for a single feeble gag). These irrelevancies might not be so bad if they added some definition to the characters, but the traits shown in these scenes are already introduced and reinforced in other far more relevant and important scenes, making the filler material like the above-mentioned sequences that much more annoying and boring. The end result is that the film has a flabby, drawn-out feeling to it.

Then there's the asinine slow-motion and absolutely annoying jerky/blurry camera work during the action scenes. It's not artistic, it doesn't enhance the suspense... it's just irritating and stupid.

The script is also not all it could have been. I've already mentioned pointless scenes, but a far bigger problem is the case that Holmes is working on. It's so much that he is squaring off against what seems to be a supernatural menace (even if that is more in keeping with Doyle's non-Holmes tales than this one) it's that the bad guys are of the "trying to take over the world" variety. What's next for Holmes at this point? Battling Professor Moriarty after he teams up with Ming the Merciless to conquer the Universe? A smaller, perhaps even more petty, motivation for the villains would have been far more suitable.

It's too bad this film wasn't helmed by a more competent director and based on a more solid script, because the approach taken by both the script and the actors to the characters of Holmes and Watson feels very much in keeping with the stories from which they originally sprang. While the nature of the adventure is pretty far removed from anything Doyle included in the Holmes stories, but Downey and Law portray a Holmes and a Watson that I think Doyle probably would have appreciated. They are far better than the celebrated team of Basil Rathbone & Nigel Bruce, slightly better than Jeremy Brett & Edward Hardwicke, and standing nearly equal with my favorite on-screen Holmes & Watson team of Peter Cushing & Andre Morrell.


All in all, file this Holmes version with the Hammer "The Hound of the Baskervilles" starring Cushing and Morrell. It gets the characters right, it's very entertaining, but the storyline is a bit far from Conan Doyle. Not as far as some of the Basil Rathbone films, but pretty far nonetheless.

'Die Hard' brings explosions to Christmas

Die Hard (1988)
Starring: Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman and Bonnie Bedelia
Director: John McTiernan
Steve's Rating: Nine of Ten Stars

Hardboiled New York City cop John McClaine (Willis) is struggling to cope with the long-distance relationship his marriage has become since his wife (Bedelia) took a job at the offices of a Japanese company in California. He travels west for Christmas Eve and the company's Christmas party, but soon finds himself in a situation far more explosive than his marriage will ever be: A group of terrorists led by Hans Gruber (Rickman) has taken the company executives (along with John's wife) and are threatening to kill them one by one unless a series of rediculous demands are met. With much more than his marriage at stake, John sets about defeating the terrorists single-handedly... but will he be fast (and deadly) enough to stop Hans Gruber's real master plan?


"Die Hard" is perhaps the perfect "hero with no way out, surrounded and outnumered by bad guys, and the situation keeps going from bad to worse"-movie. The script careens toward the film's explosive climax at breakneck pace from the very beginning, and yet it still manages to work in enough characterizations, subplots, and reversals that the viewer is invested in the characters and kept guessing how things might turn out up to the very end.

Rickman and Willis are excellent as the film's coldhearted villian and very vulnerable hero--unlike the heroes protrayed by the likes of Schwarznegger and Segal, Willis' John McClaine actually bleeds when hit, shot, or cut--and a fantastic supporting cast lets them both shine ever brighter. The cat-and-mouse game between McClaine and Gruber should stand as one of the greatest battles of wits and weapons in cinematic history.

If you haven't seen "Die Hard," add it to you list of Christmas viewing. At the very least, you'll be able to say that no matter how bad getting together with the relatives is. At least none of them are shooting up the Christmas tree with uzis or blowing up skyscrapers with all of you still inside.

'Identity' is a mystery within a mystery

Identity (2003)
Starring: John Cusack, Ray Liotta and Amanda Peet
Director: James Mangold
Rating: Nine of Ten Stars

On a stormy night, a group of unrelated strangers are stranded at a motel... and then they start dying most horribly. As they try to find the murderer among them, it becomes apparent that they aren't the strangers they first thought they were, and that they have been brought here by mysterious forces far stronger than chance.


"Identity" is one of those movies that it's hard to talk about without spoiling the entire thing. It's extremely well-crated in that the characters start to recognize that there's something seriously wrong with the situation they have been thrust into--in addition to the fact that someone is butchering them "Ten Little Indians"-style--as the viewer does. Similarly, the characters become aware of the impossibility and improbility of what is unfolding at the same pace that the viewer does. At every turn, the movie keeps pace with the audience, continuing to share revelations at the right moment, while constantly upping the tension level and making the need to find the answers evermore desirable by the characters and the viewers. This film is quite strange, but it is a well-made kind of strange.

There have been a lot of mystery and suspense thrillers in recent years that have attempted to be oh-so-clever and have relied on twist-endings that were either so far-fetched and unsupported by what has gone before that they feel like cheats or just plain stupid, or were so predictable that the audience figured them out well before the "big revelation." With "Identity," the filmmakers get it just right, and they have actually made a clever film within the trappings of a well-used mystery movie set-up. What's more, the sets are great, the camerawork extremely well-done, and the acting is top-notch from all players.

If you have patience, a love of mystery and suspense films, and tolerance for the slightly bizarre, I think you'll enjoy the claustrophobic, meanacing sense that permeates "Identity." And I think you'll get a kick out of a "big revelation" that actually works.

'Tightrope' sees Eastwood asa more three-dimensional hardnosed cop

Tightrope (1984)
Starring: Clint Eastwood, Genevieve Bujold, Dan Heydeya and Alison Eastwood
Director: Richard Tuggle
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

When New Orleans homicide detective Wes Block (Eastwood) is assigned to investigate a series of killings in the seamier side of the French Quarter, he discovers that the killer is preying not just on female sex workers but on the darker side of Block's own nature.


"Tightrope" is a fabulous movie. It unfolds like a classic film-noir detective story, and while I think it was a tad too slowly paced at times, it still managed to keep my interest throughout. The most fascinating part of the movie, however, is the character of Wes Block. It's probably one of the most fully rounded, completely realized, and utterly believable characters to ever appear in a detective flick. While the hunt for the serial killer that drives the movie is interesting, the real heart of the film resides with Block, his two daughters (one of which is played by Eastwood's real-life daughter Alison, who displays much talent at a young age), and the one decent woman he hooks up with while investigating the crimes (Bujold).

This is a different sort of Clint Eastwood crime drama, about a different sort of detective. It's a film that all lovers of police dramas should see.

Thirteen remains an unlucky number

Thirteen at Dinner (1986)
Starring: Peter Ustinov, Jonathan Cecil, Faye Dunaway, David Suchet, Bill Nighy, Lee Horsely and Diane Keen
Director: Lou Antonio
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

When Lord Edgeware is found stabbed to death, Belgian detective Hercule Poirot (Ustinov) has to solve a case where the most likely suspect, the victim's wife (Dunaway) has an unshakeable alibi. What's more, Proirot himself insured that she doesn't have a clear motive either.


"Thirteen at Dinner" sees the actor to best capture Agatha Christie's most fussy detective portray him in an adaptation of "Lord Edgware Dies" that's been been updated to the mid-1980s, with the film starting with Poirot making a guest appearance on television talk show where he first encounters some of those who will play central roles in the multiple murders that will be committed within short order.

This is a high quality production that takes a story originally set during the late 1920s and early 1930s and seamlessly updates it to the 1980s. With a cast of extremely talented British actors and the look and feel of a cinematic release, only the obvious "dramatic pauses" where the commercial breaks and occassional, super-brief recaps of what late-comers may have missed (through characters reviewing what they about the case with each other) give away the fact that the movie originated on American television.

Peter Ustinov is excellent as always in the role of Poirot and his interplay with Jonathan Cecil as Hastings adds great humor to the film (although Cecil's overly fey portrayal of Hastings leads one to wonder if perhaps the two are a different sort of longtime companions). Another remarkable castmember is David Suchet who will start playing Poirot in the long-running ITV/KBGH series in the 1990s, who is here seen as Inspector Japp.

The only noteworthy complaint I have about "Thirteen for Dinner" is that I had the entire mystery even before the first murder had actually occured. I was made the same wrong deduction regarding one of the characters that Poirot did, but I figured out everything else. I don't know if I knew the answer to the mystery because I've read "Lord Edgware Dies" at some point, or perhaps seen the version starring David Suchet, or whetherthe plot is really that obvious, but having figured it all out early on did make the movie a little less fun for me than it could have been.

Still, I recommend it for those who enjoy Agatha Christie mysteries (and similar type detective literature and shows.)

'Death Rage' is a film to remain calm about

Death Rage (aka "Anger In His Eyes") (1976)
Starring: Yul Brynner, Martin Balsam, Barbara Bouchet, and Massimo Ranieri
Director: Anthony M. Dawson
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

A New York hitman (Brynner) suffering from intermittent hysterical blindness travels to Italy in order to assassinate the Mafia boss who murdered his brother. On his way to hit, he's in car-chases and running gunbattles, meets the love of his life (Bouchet), outsmarts a police inspector (Balsam), and finds himself a loyal apprentice hitman (Ranieri) to whom he can pass along his "wisdom".


"Death Rage" is a slightly chaotic crime drama with a heavy emphasis on the drama. I don't think I've seen so many seasoned actors seemingly playing to the back rows of the local community theater auditorium... and I'm astonished that Yul Brynner didn't burst something while working on this film; I don't think such consistent and dedicated overacting has been recorded anywhere else in the annals of film history.

Perhaps the actors are all laboring so mightily because they are trying to compensate for the fact that there isn't a character in this movie who wasn't a tired cliche even before the 1970s dawned, and that they realize the script really brings nothing new or innovative to crime dramas or mob movies.

This film isn't exactly bad... just bland and generic. I thnk lovers of All Things Mafia might get a kick out of it. Similarly, those who haven't seen many films of the "gun-slinger takes on one last job" sub-genre might enjoy it. The rest of us, though, can probably safely skip this one.