Movie Review: Richard Jewell

Richard Jewell **** / *****

Directed by: Clint Eastwood.

Written by: Billy Ray based on the magazine article by Marie Brenner.

Starring: Paul Walter Hauser (Richard Jewell), Sam Rockwell (Watson Bryant), Olivia Wilde (Kathy Scruggs), Jon Hamm (Tom Shaw), Kathy Bates (Bobi Jewell), Nina Arianda (Nadya), Ian Gomez (Agent Dan Bennet), Niko Nicotera (Dave Dutchess), Mike Pniewski (Brandon Hamm), Dylan Kussman (Bruce Hughes), David Shae (Ron Martz), Charles Green (Dr. W. Ray Cleere), Billy Slaughter (Tim Barker), Alex Collins (Max Green), Dani Deetté (APD Officer Kacie Boebel), Matthew Atchley (FBI Agent Doug Wall), Olaolu Winfunke (Eli Gradestone).

 

It is a shame that almost all the talk around Clint Eastwood’s Richard Jewell film has centered around one character – Kathy Scruggs – and not just that one character, but one scene involving that character. Scruggs was a real reporter for the Atlanta Journal Constitution – the newspaper that rushed to publish that Jewell was the suspect in the Centennial Park Bombing during the Atlanta Olympics in 1996, which kicked off a process that nearly destroyed his life, despite the fact that he was completely innocent. The FBI and the Media had Jewell in their crosshairs, and wouldn’t let him out – a tragedy considering that Jewell’s action saved lives that night, and whatever else you can say about him, that wasn’t right. The scene in question involves how Scruggs got Jewell’s name in the first place – in the film, it is outright stated that she sleeps with the FBI Agent in Charge, Tom Shaw (Jon Hamm) – a fictional amalgamation of a character – to get the information. In reality, we don’t know what Scruggs sources were, or how she got the information – like any good reporter, she wouldn’t reveal them, but there is absolutely no evidence, and before the movie no speculation, then Scruggs slept with anyone to get the information. The fact that Eastwood’ film depicts it as such is a slap in the face to Scruggs – who died years ago – and is a continuation of a harmful, and inaccurate, stereotype about female reporters sleeping with sources to get information. It shouldn’t have happened. And not only that, it was wholly, completely unnecessary. There is more than enough real, factual information about the sins of the FBI and the Media involved to paint them as the bad actors they were in this case, without adding this unnecessary smear. Olivia Wilde’s wild eyed performance as Scruggs throughout the film doesn’t help much either. It’s a black mark on the film – and on what had been a great year for Wilde, with her terrific performance in A Vigilante and her directorial debut Booksmart.

 

It's a shame because of all of that, but it’s also a shame because so much of the rest of Richard Jewell is a stellar movie – one of Eastwood’s best late period films. You can question the politics of it all – why Eastwood has decided to tell this story, where the media and the FBI are the bad guys, in an era where Donald Trump seems to believe that to be true, but Jewell’s case is a real one – and is about the dangers of jumping to conclusions when there are no facts. Of course Richard Jewell, the man who found the bomb needed to be investigated. But they didn’t need to drag him through the mud while doing so. And they did it because he was fat, seemed kind of slow, and lived with his mother. Because he had had a failed law enforcement career, and delusions of grandeur about his power and what he could do. The film is about Jewell’s slow dawning realization that no matter how much he loves these institutions; they will never love him back.

 

Jewell is played by Paul Walter Hauser, the standout supporting actor from I, Tonya a few years ago (who was also quite good in BlackKklansman last year). It is perfect casting, and Hauser makes the most of his first lead role in a film. He plays Jewell as a man who really does believe in law and order – believes in the police, in law enforcement, and enforcing the law as written. When he was a college rent-a-cop, he went too far in enforcing the rules, and got fired. It wasn’t the first time he got let go from a police job because he was overly enthusiastic. He is, in short, the kind of guy you don’t want to be a police officer. This is how he ends up working security during the Olympics – which is where he finds the bomb. The opening sequence, with the sequence of events leading up to the explosion is masterfully directed by Eastwood – slowly building the tension to what we know, but the people in the crowd do not know, is coming. All the acts of domestic terrorism (mass shootings included) in the decades since then has just made the sequence all the more terrifying.

 

From the time Jewell becomes a suspect, he doesn’t seem to fully understand what is happening to him. Luckily, he hires a lawyer, Watson Bryant (Sam Rockwell, excellent in ways that aren’t immediately obvious) who protects him as much as he can. The problem is that Jewell is a believer in these institutions and wants to help them. But while Jewell has an inflated sense of his own importance – and seems somewhat delusional – he isn’t stupid. He is angry, but he doesn’t want to show it. His mother Bobbi (Kathy Bates) doesn’t understand what is happening – and her life is being ruined as well, despite how supportive she is. Meanwhile, the FBI and the Media keeps acting as if Jewell is guilty, and they have him dead to rights – despite some very obvious facts that don’t add up, and no evidence of any kind.

 

Basically, everything that doesn’t involved Kathy Scruggs is top notch Clint Eastwood. His ideas of heroism, of good and evil, have always been more complex than he is given credit for. The film doesn’t quite hit the heights of his best late period film – American Sniper (a prime example of a film that is more complex than many people, on both sides, think it is). It is another complex, moral look at heroism in America – the limits of our institutions, and the danger of believing in them too much. When Donald Trump says Fake News, he is undermining everything that it means to be American – but sometimes, there is fake news, and it isn’t going to go away without looking at it.

Movie Review: The Mule

The Mule **** / *****

Directed by: Clint Eastwood.

Written by: Nick Schenk based on the article by Sam Dolnick.

Starring: Clint Eastwood (Earl Stone), Bradley Cooper (Colin Bates), Taissa Farmiga (Ginny), Alison Eastwood (Iris), Michael Peña (DEA Agent), Andy Garcia (Laton), Laurence Fishburne (DEA Special Agent), Dianne Wiest (Mary), Clifton Collins Jr. (Cartel Member), Manny Montana (Axl), Jill Flint (Pam), Robert LaSardo (Emilio), Noel Gugliemi (Bald Rob), Loren Dean (DEA Agent Brown), Ignacio Serricchio (Julio), Katie Gill (Sarah), Daniel Moncada (Eduardo), Victor Rasuk (Rico).

 

Ten years ago, Gran Torino was supposed to be the then 78-year old Clint Eastwood’s acting swansong – and it was a fitting one, where the veteran actor played a Korean war veteran, who has to confront his own violent past, and his own racism – and like a number of Eastwood films before, make way for the younger generation as his character had become a man who has outlived his time. Four years later, Eastwood acted in Trouble with the Curve (he didn’t direct that one) – and for a while, that looked to be his final onscreen working – far less fitting, as while that film is kind of fun and charming, it’s also largely forgettable, and has the exact opposite message – where Eastwood’s baseball scout can still tell better than any phony math who can play baseball, and who can’t. I’m glad then that Eastwood decided to star in this one last film – The Mule – which shows that the old guy still has it, and is a fitting send off for his onscreen career – that is if the now 88-year-old doesn’t have something else up his sleeve for 2028.

 

The film itself is a bit of an odd duck. It is loosely based on a true story, that found a 90-year-old man become the go to drug mule for a Mexican Cartel – hauling hundreds of kilos from Texas to Chicago in the back of his pickup. The money is good – and for Earl that is enough. He was once one of the more celebrated members of the Day Lily Community – we see him in an early scene in 2005 winning member of the year at a convention (that he skipped his daughter’s wedding to attend) – but also in that scene recognize what will be his downfall there – his failure to embrace the internet. 12 years later, his farm is foreclosed on, and he has no money and nowhere to go. That daughter, Iris (Allison Eastwood – Clint’s daughter) won’t speak to him, and neither will his ex-wife, Mary (Dianne Wiest). His granddaughter, Ginny (Taissa Farmiga) still loves Grandpa Earl – and is now getting married herself – and Earl has promised to pay for the open bar. So when the opportunity to make thousands of dollars for driving comes up, Earl takes it – thinking it will be a one-time thing. It won’t be.

 

When you hear that Clint Eastwood has made a film about Mexican drug cartels, you are probably thinking you’re in for an exciting action movie – maybe a film with mounting tension. The Mule is decidedly not that. Earl has a blast on the road – through Middle America – and he’s able to win over just about everyone. The cartel members who load up his truck at first glare at him – trying to intimidate him, but soon they’re all laughing and joking together. He has a couple of strange run-ins along the way that show his age – first with an all-female motorcycle group – “Dykes on Bikes” and then with an African American family with a flat tire – in both cases Earl uses decidedly non-PC language – and gets politely, if firmly, rebuffed. He smiles and laughs it off. He is casually racist – not as much as his Gran Torino character, but they’re certainly from the same generation – but he means no one any harm.

 

The Mule isn’t quite a comedy, and it isn’t quite a drama, and it isn’t quite a thriller, so honestly, I’m not quite sure what it is. Whatever it is, it works – gliding mostly on Eastwood’s charms in front of the camera, and his minimalist approach to directing behind it. You cannot say this is a vanity free performance by Eastwood – he has two three ways in the film, so yes, there is some ego stroking going on here – but even in one of those sequences, Eastwood undercuts that somewhat by showing us his rail thin, seemingly frail body. Eastwood isn’t afraid to look old here – and it’s a treat to see him play that old, and then in other scenes, overplay how old he is to distract various cops into thinking he’s a doddering old fool. That’s what makes him such a good drug mule – because who would think they would entrust that much money to this guy?

 

There is some political undercurrent here as well. Eastwood paints a portrait of modern day America where it doesn’t matter if you’re a DEA agent, a Cartel member or anyone else – the big guy will always have his foot on the neck of the little guy, keeping him down, demanding more from him. But mainly, this is a portrait of a man who is coming near the end of his life, and looks back at everything he has done, and wonders if he mucked it all up. The fact that film is released around the time of Sondra Locke’s death is a strange coincidence – the end of that chapter in Eastwood’s life is perhaps the ugliest side of Eastwood’s own personal life, which he has always tried to keep private.

 

The Mule doesn’t hit the heights of Eastwood’s best work – this is no Outlaw Josey Wales or Unforgiven – but it’s a treat to see Eastwood onscreen again, and carrying this strange little movie.

Movie Review: The 15:17 to Paris

The 15:17 to Paris ** / ***** 

Directed by: Clint Eastwood   

Written by: Dorothy Blyskal based on the book by Anthony Sadler and Alek Skarlatos and Spencer Stone and Jeffrey E. Stern.

Starring: Spencer Stone (Airman Spencer Stone), Anthony Sadler (Anthony Sadler), Alek Skarlatos (Specialist Alek Skarlatos), Jenna Fischer (Heidi Skarlatos), Judy Greer (Joyce Eskel), Cole Eichenberger (Young Spencer Stone), Paul-Mikél Williams (Young Anthony Sadler), Bryce Gheisar (Young Alek Skarlatos), Ray Corasani (Ayoub El-Khazzani), Thomas Lennon (School Principal), Jaleel White (Garrett Walden), Tony Hale (Gym Teacher), P.J. Byrne (Mr. Henry - Hallway Monitor).

 

It’s easy to see what drew 87 year old icon Clint Eastwood to the story of three young Americans, two of them in the armed forces, who happened to be a train from Amsterdam to Paris when a terrorist, armed with an assault rifle and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, tried to carry out a deadly attack – only to be foiled by those three men, with the assistance of others on board the train. It is a story of everyday heroism and how violence is sometimes necessary to prevent even worse violence. But Eastwood never really finds his way into the material here, never really figures out what he’s trying to say with the film. Eastwood’s films have always been about violence – its causes and its effects, and while his films often argue violence is necessary, they also usually argue that it comes with some sort of cost. This film never gets that chance, as it climaxes with the violence, and then has a hasty reconstructed ceremony honoring the heroes, and then just ends. The attack itself is handled very well by Eastwood – most of what leads up to it is horribly awkward.

 

Part, but not all, of that awkwardness comes from the fact that Eastwood cast the real life people – Spencer Stone, Anthony Sadler and Alek Skarlatos – to play themselves. There are directors who excel at working with non-professionals, and drawing great performances out of them – but Eastwood is not one of them (I cannot help but think that Eastwood’s famous quick shooting style of only liking one or two takes cannot help amateurs, who clearly don’t know what they’re doing). All three performances are awkward – although at a certain point, they also become somewhat charming. Perhaps it’s because the dialogue for some the pros is so brutally awful, that they don’t come across any better (poor Jenna Fischer and Judy Greer can do absolutely nothing with their roles). The film spends an absurd amount of time on the three young men in high school (middle school?) as all three of them get into trouble, but find each other as friends – and remain so, even when circumstances force them apart. This segment has a whole lot of wonderful actors – Thomas Lennon, Jaleel White, Tony Hale, P.J. Bryne – show up for a scene or two, and then disappear having not done very much.

 

The rest of the movie is about the trio as they travel through Europe – Italy, Berlin, and Amsterdam- on a collision course with that train we know they will eventually get on. Eastwood has many gifts as a director – making a casual, hangout film isn’t one of them (I would love to see behind the scenes footage of Eastwood at that club in Amsterdam though if some exists).

 

What’s most disappointing to me about The 15:17 to Paris though is how simple Eastwood makes this all seem – how straight forward. Eastwood is a conservative filmmaker to be sure, but over the years, his films have taken more pointed shots at violence, patriotism and heroism than most liberal filmmakers have. He has rarely depicted even violence as one sided (the criticism that drove me nuts about American Sniper is that Eastwood had made a career of “white hats” and “black hats” – clearly defined characters of good and evil, which make me wonder if those saying that had seen any of his films at all). His last truly great films – Flags of Our Father and Letters from Iwo Jima (2006) were two sides of the same coin – showing both the American and Japanese version of that battle, the American version really questioning how America identifies and celebrate war heroes, and the Japanese side showing honor of America’s enemy. The blind spot for Eastwood here is Islamic extremism – a subject he has now tackled twice in American Sniper and The 15:17 to Paris. I didn’t mind that he didn’t have any Iraqis as real characters in American Sniper – that was a film that honed in on the perspective of a man who experienced the war through a sniper rifle, at a distance, when the enemies would have been faceless. There is no such excuse in The 15:17 to Paris – where the heroes get up close and personal with the terrorist. He is as faceless as the enemies in American Sniper – we have no idea what led him to that train or why. Eastwood, it seems, doesn’t care.

 

I really do hope that Eastwood sticks around for a while longer, and directs some more films. When he goes, he will leave a hole in Hollywood that will be impossible to fill. Having said that, it’s pretty hard to argue that The 15:17 to Paris is one of the worst films Eastwood has ever directed – a misjudged film, made a filmmaker without the skillset to pull it off. You want to admire it for all sorts of reasons, but it just isn’t very good.

Movie Review: Sully

Sully

Directed by: Clint Eastwood.

Written by: Todd Komarnicki based on the book by Chesley Sullenberger and Jeffrey Zaslow.

Starring: Tom Hanks (Chesley 'Sully' Sullenberger), Aaron Eckhart (Jeff Skiles), Laura Linney (Lorraine Sullenberger), Mike O'Malley (Charles Porter), Anna Gunn (Elizabeth Davis), Valerie Mahaffey (Diane Higgins), Delphi Harrington (Lucille Palmer), Jamey Sheridan (Ben Edwards), Holt McCallany (Mike Cleary).

 

I remember when American Sniper came out, I saw a round table discussion on the film on the late, great Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore, where one of the commenters said that Eastwood had made his career making films that are black and white morally – an assumption that I gather he made after watching zero Clint Eastwood films, because the best films he has made as a director all exist in the moral grey zone. Eastwood’s view of heroism is quite complex in films like The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), Unforgiven (1992), his twin Iwo Jiwa films, Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jim (both 2006) – and yes, even American Sniper (2014) itself – among other. He has also presented some more simplistic views over the years – mostly in genre films – but Eastwood is at his best when the contradiction inherent in violence and heroism – that violence can be necessary, but it always comes at a cost. His latest film, Sully, unfortunately doesn’t make a whole lot of room for that moral grey area that marks Eastwood’s best films. It stars Tom Hanks as Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, the airline pilot who lost both engines right after takeoff, and landed his plane – with 155 people on board – on the Hudson River – and miraculously, everyone survived. Sully became an instant national hero – even if there were some who questioned his decisions that day. Because the whole water landing took place over a mere 208 seconds (the film says that number A LOT), Eastwood has to find a way to stretch that into a feature film – a tight one, even by Eastwood’s standards, which runs just over 90 minutes long. He does it by showing those 208 seconds multiple times, from multiple view points, during the course of the movie – and turning much of the film into a kind of courtroom drama – where Sully argues for the “human factor” to bureaucrats who tout their technology. Guess who wins?

 

However, while I don’t think Sully is near Eastwood’s best work, that doesn’t mean that it isn’t a rock solid movie on its own terms. It starts with Hanks’ performance as Sully – which fits nicely into his recent run of performances in films like Captain Phillips and Bridge of Spies, as men who will stand up for what they believe in, no matter what anyone else says. I think Hanks is often underrated as an actor, simply because he makes performances like the ones delivered in those movies look so effortless – like he isn’t even trying. But most actors couldn’t deliver those performances no matter how hard they tried, and Hanks fills them with quiet, subtle moments. It’s true that films like Greengrass, Spielberg and now Eastwood cast Hanks as a kind of shorthand – Hanks is now essentially America’s Dad, so we’re on his side from the get go. But Hanks shades the performance nicely – while the film doesn’t doubt Sully’s heroism for a second, Hanks allows doubt to seep into his screen version of Sully – which, of course, makes him all the more heroic – reluctant heroes are much more likable after all. None of the other performances really register that much – although Aaron Eckhart does have a killer mustache, and a couple of good one-liners. This is Hanks’ show – at least when it isn’t Eastwood’s.

 

As a filmmaker, Eastwood has always been a classicist – and he normally strips away all the fat in his film – all those elements that aren’t strictly necessary. He doesn’t quite do that in Sully – a few flashbacks to Sully’s younger days adds absolutely nothing to the movie, and I could have done with fewer phone to his distraught wife (although that could be because his wife is played by the great Laura Linney, who is given nothing to do but cry, and it’s frustrating to an actress of her talent wasted like that) – then again, the film still barely gets above 90 minutes, so he probably needed that padding. Eastwood is at his best when recreating those fateful 208 seconds though – and a few horrible moments when Sully thinks about what could have happened had he messed up (these moments will strike many as exploitive – as it literally depicts a plane crashing into New York City, calling to mind 9/11 specifically – then again, pretty much every blockbuster now using 9/11 inspired imagery – and that’s for movies about men in capes punching each other, so perhaps Sully can be cut some slack). I’ve always liked the way Eastwood shoots interiors as well – and there are some highlights here as well (the darkened bar, Sully lost in thought looking at the window, etc.). Finally, I did appreciate how the films climatic “courtroom” scenes pretty much ignored the typical theatrics of those moments – preferring something much quieter, and realistic.

 

Sully is far from a perfect movie. Yes, it is too simplistic a view of heroism for Eastwood – who I suspect, felt a great kinship with Sully (the Eastwood film that Sully actually reminded me of is one he didn’t direct, but starred in – Trouble with the Curve, win which he played an aging baseball scout, whose eyesight is going, but he still knows more than those crazy kids with their stats and computers – or as Eastwood recently called them, the “Pussy Generation” – good ol’ Clint). The film also has some lines that are way too on the nose “No one dies today”, “It’s been a long time since New York had good news to celebrate – especially involving a plane”). Still, what Sully does it does well. It’s a solid effort from Eastwood – and more than solid from Hanks. Both have done better – but Sully’s still rock solid.

Movie Review: American Sniper

American Sniper
Directed by: Clint Eastwood.
Written by: Jason Hall based on the book by Chris Kyle and Scott McEwen and James Defelice.
Starring: Bradley Cooper (Chris Kyle), Sienna Miller (Taya), Kyle Gallner (Goat-Winston), Cole Konis (Young Chris Kyle), Ben Reed (Wayne Kyle), Luke Sunshine (Young Jeff Kyle), Keir O'Donnell (Jeff Kyle), Sammy Sheik (Mustafa), Tim Griffin (Colonel Gronski), Luis Jose Lopez (Sanchez), Brian Hallisay (Capt. Gillespie), Erik Aude (Thompson), Jad Mhidi Senhaji (Omar), Navid Negahban (Sheikh Al-Obodi), Sam Jaeger (Navy Seal Lt. Martin), Chance Kelly (Lt. Col Jones), Ayman Samman (Father).

It`s always a shame when a film becomes a political football – to be punted back and forth between people who seem to only be capable of seeing things in terms of black and white, liberal and conservative, good and evil. It’s an even bigger shame when that movie is a film like Clint Eastwood's American Sniper – which is a much more nuanced film than many seem to want to think it is. Going into the film, I was confused by the rhetoric being written on both sides that the film was a rah-rah, pro-gun, pro-America, pro-war anti-Muslim, xenophobic screed. It confused me because while Clint is certainly guilty of making himself into a caricature on film, and in his infamous speech to empty chair Obama at the RNC, as an artist he has always had a more nuanced, complex view of violence. This is the man who made Unforgiven with its famous line “Hell of a thing, killing a man. You take away all he`s got, all he`s ever going to have”. The man who made Flags of Our Fathers, which was one of the more complex looks at American heroism in WWII put on film, and then followed it up with Letters from Iwo Jima, which looked at the war from the opposite side without demonizing anyone. American Sniper fits neatly in with those films in that it looks at the consequences of violence on a man who apparently has the most confirmed kills of any serviceman in American history – consequences that he both realizes and doesn’t realize. I’m not going to say that American Sniper is an anti-war film – it isn’t – or that it is a perfect film – it rushes through the post-war years of its main character in 10 minutes when it needed a hell of a lot longer. But while the film doesn’t offer a complex political view of the Iraq war – there are no debates about the rightness or wrongness of it at all, or the enemy – who the main character simply sees through his gun site and kills them – I also believe that is the point of the movie. It locks in on the main characters viewpoint, and sticks with it from beginning to end. There is value in that as well.

The film opens with Chris Kyle (Bradley Cooper) in Iraq, locking his sites on a child carrying a bomb, and his mother who gave it to him. He isn’t sure if he should take the shot or not – he hesitates for a moment, and then the film flashes back to Kyle as a child – being instructed by his father about the way of the world. Kyle is told there are three types of people in the world – sheep, who look away from violence, wolves who use violence to terrify others, and sheepdogs who use violence to protect the sheep. His father isn’t raising any sheep – and he will kick their ass if they become wolves. That leaves only one option left for Kyle. Eastwood flashes forward a little bit more – to 1999, when Kyle, now 30, sees a news report about embassy bombings and gets angry. "They’re attacking us" he says – and he immediately decides that it is time to sign up for the military. He’s already a good shot – and he wants to fight – so he ends up a Navy SEAL. He meets his future wife, Taya (Sienna Miller) and falls in love – and after 9/11 he is sent to Iraq. It’s only then they we get a resolution to the dilemma he faced in that opening scene. Even here, it is more complex than Kyle realizes – he is congratulated for his actions, and immediately tells the person to shut up. When he takes those shots, he is changed – and he never quite realizes it.

The movie will spend most its running time flashing back and forth between Kyle in the field, and his life on the home front – which gets increasingly fragile. His family grows, but Taya starts to think she is married to a stranger. He isn’t there even when he is there. He sees his brother for the first time, and he is simply shell shocked. A soldier he served alongside is killed, and when he attends the funeral with Taya is shocked when the soldier’s mother reads a letter he wrote just weeks before he was killed – expressing doubt about his actions. “It was that letter that killed him” Kyle says – but he wants to believe that more than he actually does.

It is in moments like this, and others, that make me wonder why some people – who either love the film or hate it – think that the film itself is an “America, fuck yeah!” war movie, like last year’s Lone Survivor certainly was. It is there in Bradley Coopers fine performance as Kyle – who outwardly is confident, whose words never betray that he has doubts about what he is doing, that spouts offensive things like the people he is fighting being savages. But Cooper’s eyes tell a different story. He does what he does because he feels he has to – and I find the argument that he didn’t have to absurd – he is a soldier in a warzone, and he was doing his job, whether or not you agree with the reasons America was in Iraq or not (and for the record, I don’t), doesn’t really matter.

Some of the other criticisms of the film are easier to understand, even if I don’t necessarily agree with all of them. It is true that the film doesn’t give any insight into the Iraq war at all and why American went – but does it need to. Don’t you already know that? And if the film never questions that involvement, I think that’s more because Kyle himself never questions it, and the film is locked in on his viewpoint. Kyle doesn’t want to question it – if he did, the whole façade he has built up would come crumbling down. The film is perhaps on shakier ground its portrayals of the Iraqi people itself – given that the film doesn’t really give them any portrayal at all. There is only one sympathetic character – a man who agrees to help the Americans, and pays an awful price for that. The film certainly shows us Iraqis behaving in abhorrent ways (what happens to that man is an example) – but again, I think it’s because the movie is locked into Kyles viewpoint, and this is the way he sees it. The portrayal of a rival sniper – Mustafa, rumored to be a Syrian athlete, is more problematic – because the film never really explores that character in any real way. He’s used as a storytelling shortcut, to give a face to what for the rest of the movie is a faceless enemy. The ending of the film doesn’t really work at all either. There is a moment with Kyle in a bar that would have been a better place to stop the movie – but instead Eastwood plows on for another 10 or 15 minutes, and gives a shallow portrait of Kyles homecoming – that almost gives you whiplash, as one moment he is seemingly stricken with PTSD, and primed to explode, and then the next he is perfectly fine. If Eastwood wasn’t really going to examine that conversion, he shouldn’t have started at all. But he does this in part, because he wants to get to Kyles tragic death in 2013 – where he was killed by another soldier suffering from PTSD, and the resulting funeral. And don’t even get me started on what is probably the fakest looking baby in movie history.

But overall, I think American Sniper is an excellent film – one that resists the various black or white, liberal or conservative boxes that everyone seems to want to put it in. It doesn’t argue that Kyle should not have done what he did – it mostly argues, like many Eastwood films do, that violence is often necessary, but again, like many Eastwood films argues; it does say that the violence does have a cost on those who are forced to commit it. That makes it very much in line with the best Clint Eastwood films he has directed – and even if it doesn’t quite reach the level of a film like Unforgiven – well, most films don’t. This is a film that has haunted me for days now, and will continue to do so – so I think no matter what your thoughts on the war in Iraq or your own political leanings, than American Sniper is a film that should be seen. But it must be seen with a mind opened to be challenged. I don’t need a film to confirm my political ideals to think it’s a great film.

Movie Review: Jersey Boys

Jersey Boys
Directed by: Clint Eastwood.
Written by: Marshall Brickman & Rick Elice based on their musical.
Starring: John Lloyd Young (Frankie Valli), Vincent Piazza (Tommy DeVito), Erich Bergen (Bob Gaudio), Michael Lomenda (Nick Massi), Christopher Walken (Gyp DeCarlo), Renée Marino (Mary), Johnny Cannizzaro (Nick DeVito), Mike Doyle (Bob Crewe), Donnie Kehr (Norm Waxman), Erica Piccininni (Lorraine).

Not having seen the super popular stage show that Jersey Boys is based on, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from Clint Eastwood’s movie – but it certainly wasn’t the movie I saw. From everything I had heard about the show, I had it in my head as something akin to Mamma Mia – an all singing, all dancing show with constant music, movement and excitement – which isn’t really what I particularly like in my Broadway musicals (I hated Mamma Mia) – which is one of the reason I stayed away. Eastwood’s film is darker than I expected – both visually and thematically. There is a lot of music in the movie – but Eastwood shoots it all in a curious way – often with the band recording the song, or performing it on TV, where Eastwood sets his cameras behind the television cameras so he’s not just filming the band, but film the band being filmed. Often he doesn’t even let whole songs play out in their entirety. Over the end credits, Eastwood finally films the kind of big, brassy musical number I was expecting throughout the film – as if in the film’s last moments Eastwood is letting the audience know that he could have delivered what everyone was expecting if he wanted to – he just didn’t want to. The film Jersey Boys resembles more than any other I can think of is Martin Scorsese’s GoodFellas – which was practically a musical with no music – that Eastwood uses as a model for the film’s style and structure. As great a director as Eastwood can be – he’s no Martin Scorsese if for no other reason than because Eastwood’s style is usually more subdued – and Scorsese’s is the exact opposite. It doesn’t really help matters that the story Eastwood tells lacks the dramatics of Scorsese’s – the high wire act of fun that can turn into violence and paranoia in a heartbeat. Eastwood’s story is mainly a trivial one about the rise and fall of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons – a band who had numerous hits in the early 1960s, and then as changing musical tastes prevailed in America (something curiously not mentioned in the movie) faded from the spotlight. In short, and I cannot believe I’m saying this, Jersey Boys needed to be a little more Mamma Mia and a little less GoodFellas if it was going to be the great time at the movies it so desperately wants to be.

The film charts the humble beginnings of the Four Seasons – from their time as teenagers in a New Jersey suburb outside Newark, where it appeared that one or more of the members of the band were bound for jail rather than fame. The “narrator” for this early part of the movie is mainly Tommy DeVito (Vincent Piazza) – who has some mob connections – notably Gyp DeCarlo (Christopher Walken). He’s friends with the younger Frankie (John Lloyd Young) – and knows that the kid has a great voice. But even with the great voice, they cannot get their career off the ground. Then they meet Bob Gaudio (Erich Bergen) – who is a talented musician – and can also write songs and has plans that are grander than Tommy’s. The two don’t like each other much, and fight for control of the band. When they eventually sign a record deal with producer Bob Crewe (Mike Doyle) – their career slowly starts taking off. Eventually they become huge – with one number one hit after another – but Tommy is still immature and irresponsible – and because he’s still in charge of the money, that means trouble.

Jersey Boys is never boring, but never particularly involving either. The film is over two hours long – and yet I never really felt that I got to know anything really about the four members of the band. They are basically one note roles, and while the actors do a fine job in those notes, I wanted something a little deeper than what I got. The final scene of the movie (except for the end credits musical number) – is the band singing at their induction to the rock n’ roll hall of fame – and each member of the band takes one more opportunity to talk directly to the audience. What I found odd about this sequence is that it’s really the first time Frankie Valli himself talks to the camera – and he’s says the best moment (four men singing under a street light, discovering that sound for the first time) – is one that really isn’t in the movie at all. Then Bob comes on and says the last words to the camera – and what’s odd is that it makes him look like an egomaniac than he seemed at any point of the movie. You really shouldn’t be introducing more information like that in the last scene in the movie.

The film looks good to be sure – even if the period detail doesn’t seem authentic as much as it seems to be based on TV shows of the 1950s and ‘60s. There is a little bit of a disconnect between the film that Eastwood seemed to want to make, and the subject matter – but I did appreciate that Eastwood took the material seriously – even if at times, I think he took it a little too seriously. The music is good – the performances are fine and in a summer that is filled with big budget movies aimed at teenage boys, it is somewhat refreshing to have a major studio release aimed squarely at adults.

Yet Jersey Boys never quite comes together. It’s not a bad movie by any means, but it’s nowhere near Eastwood’s best work, nor the best musical of recent years. It never quite hits the heights it wants to. It’s not bad – but it should have been better.

Clint Eastwood The Director: The 2000s

Eastwood’s first two films of the 2000s were genre exercises – but ones that acknowledge his age more than most of his previous work did. In 2000 he made Space Cowboys, co-starring Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland and James Garner who along with Eastwood himself played former astronauts who, for reasons too complicated to explain, are re-enlisted to head back to space. If you accept the concept, than Space Cowboys is a lot of fun. Interestingly, Eastwood gives Jones the best role instead of himself. It’s great to see these four play off each other, even if the film is basically an act of nostalgia.

2002’s Blood Work has Eastwood as a former FBI agent, recovering from a heart transplant, who returns to work to catch a serial killer. Like Absolute Power, no one going to claim that Blood Work is a great film – but as a thriller, the film works remarkably well – with Eastwood once again playing off his own image as a tough guy, and complicating it a little. It’s better than it really has any right to be.

2003 marked a definite change for Eastwood. With 23 films as a director – in which he starred in all but three (Breezy, Bird and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil), Eastwood started to move away from himself as the star. Over his next 10 films (including Jersey Boys) he would only star in two of them – rightly sensing, I think, there was only so much he could do as a director if he was saddled with a man over 70 as his star.

2003’s Mystic River is one of Eastwood’s very best films. It stars Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon and Tim Robbins as three childhood friends, who have forever been shaped by an event in their childhood – where one of them was kidnapped by a pedophile, and the other two got away. Now, decades later, Sean Penn – a family man whose dealings are not exactly all legal – has had his daughter kidnapped and murdered. Bacon plays the cop trying to solve the case, and Robbins, as the man who was kidnapped, is one of the lead suspects. Mystic River is about the causes and effects of violence – how what happens in childhood can haunt you forever. The three lead performances are all great – Penn and Robbins both won Oscars, and Bacon is just as good as they are (although in a far subtler performance, which is probably why he didn’t get much awards love). Marcia Gay Harden, as Robbins’ wife who suspects her husband is guilty, and Laura Linney as Penn’s wife are both excellent (Linney only has one great scene – but it’s a doozy). While Eastwood has a reputation for making violent films, more often than not, he questions that violence – and what it all means. In Mystic River, he has made one of his best films on the subject – and one of the very best films of his career as a director.

2004’s Million Dollar Baby was the second film for which Eastwood would win Oscars for Directing and Producing,

as well as the second time he would be nominated for a Best Actor Oscar. The film came out of nowhere in the Oscar race in 2004, releasing very late in the year, but proved to be one of the best – and certainly most emotional – films of Eastwood’s career. In it, he plays an aging boxing trainer – working at a rundown club, alongside his friend (played by Morgan Freeman). A young woman (Hilary Swank) shows up and wants to train with him – but he doesn’t train girls. Eventually, she wins him over – and he helps her become a great boxer, until tragedy strikes. The film is acting showcase for its three leads – like Mystic River, it won two acting Oscars -  Morgan Freeman and Hilary Swank – but I think it’s Eastwood’s performance which is the best in the movie. Once again, he plays a stubborn man who plays by his own rules – but it’s a great performance, and one that as the film winds down packs an emotional wallop. The film really does sneak up on you – and is one of Eastwood’s best.

To follow-up his Oscar winning film, Eastwood embarked on dual projects that may just be the most ambitious of his career. In 2006, he released two films, three months apart – Flags of Our Fathers and Letter from Iwo Jima – both of which looked at the WWII battle on the Japanese island of Iwo Jima – one from the American side, and one from the Japanese. Flags of Our Fathers came first – and is the more ambitious, but also more flawed of the two films. Eastwood’s film follows the men who raised the American flag on Iwo Jima that produced one of the most iconic photographs of the 20^th Century – before, during and after the battle. This is a more complex look at the idea of heroism than we normally get in WWII movies (more so than say John Wayne’s Sands of Iwo Jima for example), and how these men are used after that photo to sell war bonds. All the flash forwards and flash backs make the film a little complicated and messy at times, but this is still an excellent film. Letters from Iwo Jima is an even better film – daring not so much in it structure – it’s a little more straight forward than Flags – but because it’s one of the only American films to portray the Japanese in WWII in a sympathetic light. Watching

the films together definitely makes them both better than they are alone and adds up to a dual portrait of men who are willing to fight – and die – for their country – no matter what country that may be.

To me, Flags and Letters are the last two great films Eastwood has made – at least so far. He has directed five films between them and Jersey Boys – and while I think one is perhaps the worst film he has ever made, the other four are least good – even if they never quite rise to his best work.

In 2008, he made Changeling – starring Angelina Jolie as a mother in 1920s Los Angeles

whose child goes missing, and when he is found, she insists that the child they give her is not the one she lost. The period detail is excellent; Angelina Jolie is given a great, although somewhat one note role that she is nevertheless very good in. The best performance though is by Jason Butler Hamer, as a serial killer of young boys who is truly terrifying. Somewhat like Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, the film is perhaps too ambitious – a little too sprawling for a director like Eastwood, who is used to more focused material. It’s a good film, but in different hands, I wonder if it couldn’t have been great.

Later that same year Eastwood made his final screen appearance in one of his own films

(and second last overall) in Gran Torino. The movie is a little bit of a mess – with not very good performances by the entire supporting cast. The plot, about an Asian gang trying to recruit a neighbor of Eastwood’s, is also a little sloppy. Yet, it is worth seeing because Eastwood is great in the lead role – a gruff, racist old timer with a shotgun who growls “Get off my lawn”. The view of gang life and race relations is simplistic in the extreme – but I didn’t much care, since Eastwood is so good in the title role. He is playing with his iconic image more than ever before – playing it for laughs early on, and then deepening it. We think we know how it’s going to end – but we’re wrong. To me, it’s almost a shame Eastwood starred in the decent Trouble with the Curve (2012) after making this film – as the final image of him in this film, would have been the perfect one to end his directing career on – one that is far different from what we expect from him, but still somewhat fitting.

Eastwood was back it again the next year with Invictus – in which he direct Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela, who in the days after he is elected President, does the unexpected and embraces the all-white South African rugby team as they prepare for the World Cup to be played on their soil. Mandela is tired of the divisions in his country, and wants to bring everyone together. As a showcase for Morgan Freeman – who landed another Oscar nomination for the role – the film works just fine. The rest is typical, boilerplate inspirational sports movie stuff (how Matt Damon, as the Captain of the rugby team got an Oscar nomination, I’ll never know). The film is effective, but never great.

2010’s Hereafter is undoubtedly my least favorite Eastwood film ever. It’s a confused mess

of a film, with an impressive tsunami special effects sequence at the beginning of the film, and then tries to weave three stories together – that of a psychic (Matt Damon) twin boys, and a woman obsessed with life after death (Cecile de French). Watching the film, I kept expecting it to come together in some way, shape or form – we know that the three stories, which seem isolated, will come crashing together – and when they finally do, it’s a letdown. The film isn’t so much ambiguous as it is confused – and by the end, I was simply bored. I’m not sure what Clint was trying to say in the movie – but I don’t think he managed it.

Eastwood’s final, pre-Jersey Boys project, was 2011’s J. Edgar – which was mostly greeted

with yawns when it came out, but that I actually think is his best since the dual films of Flags and Letters. Leonardo DiCaprio may not be my first choice to play J. Edgar Hoover, but I think he does a great job playing the paranoid head of the FBI, who denied himself what he truly wanted for his entire life. The movie spans decades in his life, and remains ambiguous as to what exactly his relationship with the Armie Hamer character is – but we know that at the very least, Hoover is in love with him. Perhaps Eastwood does try to cram too much in – from Hoover’s days chasing bank robbers to the Lindbergh kidnapping to his conflict with the Kennedys to Nixon’s ambition – but as an old school biopic, I found the film fascinating – with a great performance by DiCaprio, and another great one by Judi Dench (her line reading of “I would rather have a dead son than a daffodil for a son” is chilling). It’s not quite Eastwood’s best work – but I do think it was criminally underrated in 2011.

That brings us up to date on the career of Clint Eastwood – the director. This weekend sees the release of Jersey Boys – a musical based on the hit stage play, and something I never would have picked as a Clint Eastwood film. The reviews have largely been mixed so far – so I doubt we’re looking at another Clint masterpiece. But even though the man in his mid-80s now, I have doubt that he is still capable of producing one. He’s already at work on his next film – American Sniper – a project Steven Spielberg pulled out of.

Eastwood is one of the most interesting American filmmakers in history. He didn’t start directing until he was 41 years old – an age in which many directors have already made their best films. Eastwood’s best film was made when he was 62 – Unforgiven – and many of his most interesting films came after he turned 70. Eventually, of course, time will catch up to him- he does turn 84 this year. But I hope we get a few more films from Eastwood. It may be a while since he made his last great film – but he’s capable of making another one.

Clint Eastwood The Director: The 1990s

The 1990s were an interesting decade for Eastwood – the director. He was clearly striving at times in the 1980s – especially with Bird – to do more serious films as a filmmaker, and to be taken more seriously. In the 1990s, he finally accomplished that – and then for a while went back to make genre films. After directing 6 films in the 1970s and 7 films in the 1980s, he made 8 in the 1990s – and it’s a strange, but mostly great, bunch of films.

He started off in 1990 with one of his most underrated films – White Hunter, Black Heart – where Eastwood played a filmmaker modelled after John Huston on the set of The African Queen. It’s a great performance by Eastwood – perhaps the most daring of his career – because Eastwood’s own persona, voice and mannerisms are so iconic, that it’s somewhat strange to see him adopt the persona, voice and mannerisms of someone almost as iconic as he is with John Huston. On the surface, this is another of Eastwood’s characters who does whatever he damn well pleases – the consequences be damned. The difference between his character here and his normal character is that most often, Eastwood ignores what he’s supposed to do in favor of what he has to do in order to protect people. His standard screen character is heroic – someone who won’t let bureaucracy get in the way of doing what is right. In White Hunter Black Heart, Eastwood again plays a character that doesn’t care what he’s supposed to do – but he isn’t heroic. He’s on location in Africa to shoot a movie – but he doesn’t really care. All he really wants to do is shoot a damn elephant. It’s a fascinating film and performance by Eastwood – perhaps a little bit of a stunt, but one he mainly pulls off. This isn’t usually regarded as one of Eastwood’s best films – but I think it’s a must see.

His other 1990 film is one I have not seen – The Rookie – where Eastwood co-stars alongside Charlie Sheen. If you were to make a list of Eastwood’s films from most acclaimed to least acclaimed, The Rookie may well end up on the bottom. Over the years, I have read nothing that leads me to believe this is a film I need to see – which is why I still haven’t.

His next film however, is his masterpiece – Unforgiven (1992). There are few actors in history more associated with

Westerns than Clint Eastwood – and so there isn’t another actor – or director – who was more suited to make this film in 1992 than he was. Apparently Eastwood read the original screenplay in the 1980s – loved it, but sat on it until he felt he was old enough to play William Munny. The film is both one of the best Westerns ever made, and pretty much the nail in the coffin of the genre – that has had a few great films in the years since, but not many. It was the last time Eastwood would make a Western – as he left the genre behind, as if with Unforgiven, he said everything he wanted to say about the genre.

In the film, Eastwood plays William Munny – once a drunk and an outlaw – who murdered women, children and anyone else who got in his way. He was feared. When we first see him, he’s a widow with two young kids, and a hog farm – where most of the hogs are diseased. He married a good woman, and she set him straight. Now, he’s alone again when a kid rides up to his farm and offers him a chance to make some money. Two cowboys cut up a prostitute in a town not far from there. The other prostitutes have taken up a fund to hire men to kill them. The Kid wants Munny’s help – and eventually he agrees, leaving his kids behind, roping his old partner Ned (Morgan Freeman) into the plan as well. They ride into town – but aren’t much wanted. The Sheriff (played by Gene Hackman) tries to run them out of town. But Munny is good at what he does – and eventually he slips back into his old role.

This is the best performance of Eastwood’s career, and the best film he ever made as a director. It won him two Oscars – for producing and directing – and he deserved both. There is nothing glamorous about Unforgiven – nothing that makes the genre seem exciting, like most Westerns do. This is a film about violence, and its effects, and it takes its time. The murder of the two cowboys who cut up the girl are far from the typical, romantic gunfights – one gets shot while on the toilet, the other gets shot and slowly, painfully bleeds to death while screaming for water. Even the final confrontation – where Munny fully commits to killing for the first time (we see him, in the scene before take his first drink of whiskey in the film) – is harsh and brutal. William Munny is not a hero – and neither is anyone else in the movie. It is a masterpiece pure and simple.

Following up Unforgiven would be hard for any director – but Eastwood was back the following year with another of his more underrated films – A Perfect World, which features the best performance of Kevin Costner’s career. On the surface, the film seems like another genre film by Eastwood – as it stars Costner as a convict who breaks out of jail, takes a young boy hostage, and takes off across Texas – with Clint Eastwood as the Texas Ranger who chases him. These two know each other – Eastwood helped put Costner in jail in the first place – but doesn’t feel good about it. There is some truth that Costner was railroaded there. What follows is an uncommonly complex film that doesn’t do anything quite like we expect it to. The heart of the film is the relationship between Costner and the young boy – which doesn’t develop the way we would expect it to. In Costner, Eastwood found the perfect leading man – a strong, silent type like Eastwood himself – one who excels the most when he expresses the least. The film makes an interesting companion piece to Eastwood’s later Mystic River – as both are essentially about violence in childhood shaping violence later in life. Mystic River, deservingly, gets a lot of praise – but A Perfect World is just as good.

Out of all the films Eastwood has directed that I haven’t seen – his next film, The Bridges of Madison County (1995) is the most glaring omission. I really have no excuse for not seeing the film yet – it’s one of those ones that have been on my “too see” list for more than a decade now, and I’ve just never got around to it. It is one of his more acclaimed films – surprising many at the time, because no one expected Eastwood to direct a film version of a sudsy bestseller – let alone make a film out of it that many, if not most, consider to be better than the novel itself.

After doing three different, slightly more ambitious movies, Eastwood went back and made a straight ahead genre film. 1997’s Absolute Power is a nifty little thriller in which Eastwood plays a master thief, who while on his latest job witnesses the President (Gene Hackman) murder a young woman. No one is going to claim that Absolute Power is a great film – but it’s a good little thriller, with an fine performance by Eastwood and Hackman.

Later that same year, Eastwood did try for another “prestige” film with Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil – a murder mystery film based on the highly acclaimed, best-selling true crime book by John Berndt. Unfortunately, it turns out to be one of his weakest films. Eastwood is never able to quite capture the same feel as the novel – it’s a large, sprawling cast of characters, some so unbelievable, that have to be real. The movie – which over two and half hours long – spirals out of control, and never really settles down long enough to tell its story. It’s too ambitious – something Eastwood cannot usually be accused of – as it tries to do too much, and ends up not doing very much at all. Other than another eccentric performance by Kevin Spacey, there just isn’t much here.

He followed up that disappointment with another return to genre filmmaking with 1999’s True Crime. It’s not as good as even something like Absolute Power – but it gets the job

done as a somewhat entertaining time waster – with Eastwood as a reporter who thinks a man who is about to be executed is innocent – so he goes on a one man mission to prove it, taking it right down to the 11^th Hour. Eastwood can do this type of film in his sleep – as both a director and an actor – and at times, that is what he seems to be doing in True Crime. It’s not really a bad film – it’s just not that good either.

Eastwood’s 8 films in the 1990s range from some of his best work, to some of his worst. He finally achieved what he wanted to – and that was to be taken more seriously as a filmmaker – won two Oscars, and then went back and made a few genre films. The first few years of the 2000s, it looked like perhaps that was all Eastwood was going to do. You couldn’t blame him. He turned 70 in the year 2000, and by that time most directors have either retired or all but retired. But Eastwood wasn’t close to done yet. He had directed 21 films since his debut in 1971 to 1999. When Jersey Boys hits screens this weekend, it will be his 12^th since 2000.

Clint Eastwood The Director: The 1980s

The 1980s would bring another 7 films to Eastwood’s directing resume. In 1980, he once again tried for a departure from his usual action movie and Westerns – making Bronco Billy (again unseen by me – don’t worry, there’s only a few more like it) – where Eastwood plays a man from New Jersey who at 31 quits his job selling shoes and decides to start a Wild West travelling show. The film was generally shrugged at the time, but has garnered some defenders over the years. At the very least, it seems clear it’s Eastwood trying something different – a largely plotless comedy-drama about relationships – and has Eastwood as a man pretending to be a cowboy – which he, of course, did often.

In 1982, he returned to his action roots with Firefox – which to me is a rather mediocre, and at times ridiculous, action film – and certainly one of Eastwood’s weakest as a director. Eastwood plays a Vietnam vet – with flashbacks to the war – who nonetheless is selected to be the man the Americans send into the Soviet Union to steal their latest, top secret plane – and fly it home to America. The movie isn’t entirely bad – it’s actually kind of fun if you can stop thinking about just how crazy the story is, and go with it. But it’s certainly not a film that many remember – and there’s a reason for that.

Later that same year, Eastwood again made a slight departure – directing Honkytonk Man (again, unseen by me) – where he played a depression era country singer, tramping along in the South alongside his young nephew (played by Eastwood’s son). Again, the film was mainly greeted with indifference at the time, but like Bronco Billy, it has gained some supporters over the years.

The following year, he directed the fourth Dirty Harry movie, Sudden Impact – the only one of the series five films

that he directed himself. I wrote about the five Dirty Harry movies before (http://www.davesmoviesite.blogspot.ca/2012/07/the-dirty-harry-movies-and-vigilantes.html) – and I do think that Sudden Impact is one of the best in the series – a morally complex film that looks at vigilante justice in a more complicated way than most films of its ilk. It is hampered a little bit by too many subplots – even if one of them gives Eastwood his most famous line of all time “Go ahead, make my day” – and like many Eastwood films of this time, it’s hurt by Sondra Locke, who isn’t very good in what should be a great role. Overall though, this is a very good film – and one of the best of the Dirty Harry series.

His next film was his third Western as a director – Pale Rider – which of the three Westerns he had made to this point in his career, is probably the best. In many ways the film resembles High Plains Drifter – but it’s a calmer, more confident, and less violent film. In both, the idea that Eastwood’s character is a ghost is plain, but never explicitly referenced. He is once again out for revenge, but he isn’t as violent as last time – as hell bent on it. He is a quiet character – he barely speaks – and although he becomes a hero to a small group of people, that’s more because of what they project onto him than anything else. The Outlaw Josey Wales is his most famous of his first three Westerns – and it’s a great movie – but Pale Rider is, I think, even better.

His next film was Heartbreak Ridge where Eastwood plays a battle hardened veteran –

having his glory days in the Korean and Vietnam wars – who has been busted down to size, and is assigned to a new platoon of men – where he has to face off with a younger officer – an Annapolis grad. The film contains basic training scenes, a reunion with Eastwood’s long lost ex-wife (Marsha Mason) and eventually some combat scenes as well. It is brisk, fast paced, entertaining – and gives Eastwood a fine role. He plays the basic Eastwood tough guy –the guy who takes no crap, and wins every fight – but it does make him seem slightly more lonely and pathetic – a man who has sacrificed everything, and doesn’t have much to show for it. It’s not going to make anyone’s list of the best war films – it’s not even close really – but it is an entertaining film.

His final film of the decade was the best film of his directing career to that point – and only the second film he directed where he also does not star. At two hours and forty minutes, Bird (1988) was the longest and most ambitious film of Eastwood’s directing career – a biopic of famed jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker, an absolute genius when performing, but a complete mess offstage. He is a drug addict for most of his life, and although he tries never to hurt anyone else, he cannot stop hurting himself. Played, in the best performance of his career by Forest Whitaker, Charlie Parker is a gentle man who simply cannot stop himself. Eastwood’s film is full of the smoky darkness of the clubs he spends so much time in. It is full of great music and great moments. It is the first film of Eastwood’s career that got taken very seriously by critics – it won two prizes at Cannes (for Whitaker’s performance, and for the sound) and Eastwood won the Best Director Golden Globe – although the film would be virtually ignored by the Oscars (once again, it won for its amazing sound work – it didn’t even get nominated for anything else).

The 1980s were a largely transitional decade for Eastwood as a filmmaker. He made 7 films – and while four of them – Firefox, Sudden Impact, Pale Rider and Heartbreak Ridge – fit neatly into the persona he is best known for, three of them – Bronco Billy, Honkytonk Man and Bird – show him reaching for something beyond that. Even in Sudden Impact and especially Pale Rider, Eastwood seems he isn’t interested in making the simplistic genre films he has best known for – he wanted to do something more complex even when working in genre films.