Release Date:
Friday, August 9, 2002
Clint Eastwood is getting old, and its a good thing hes accepted this. In Blood Work, Eastwood plays Terry McCaleb, a crotchety ex-FBI agent who was forced into retirement after suffering a heart attack on the job. McCaleb had settled down, but is lured back into the game when he meets the woman whose sister was the heart donor for McCalebs heart transplant surgery and who also happened to be murdered by the serial killer who was stalking McCaleb before he retired. Got it?
Blood Work spends so much time working out the details of McCalebs investigation and past affiliations with the murderernot to mention spelling it out slowly and clearly for the audiencethat the story gets boring quickly. And its difficult to tell if Eastwood is simply acting in playing a man whos recovering from devastating surgery, or if he now talks that waywhich, we guess, is probably a good thing. With Paul Rodriguez playing the zany, stereotyped Hispanic police investigator and Jeff Daniels the wacky, lazy neighbor, all of the comedic bases are covered. In the middle of all of this madness, one minor thing is forgotten: The detective is a heart-transplant patient! Once the action finally picks up, the severe chest pains and shortness of breath McCaleb had been experiencing earlier just fade out of the storyand shouldnt sleeping with a woman 30 years his younger be reason enough to monitor this old dogs vitals? Blood Work tries to do too much in too little time and ends up losing all focus.
Blood Work spends so much time working out the details of McCalebs investigation and past affiliations with the murderernot to mention spelling it out slowly and clearly for the audiencethat the story gets boring quickly. And its difficult to tell if Eastwood is simply acting in playing a man whos recovering from devastating surgery, or if he now talks that waywhich, we guess, is probably a good thing. With Paul Rodriguez playing the zany, stereotyped Hispanic police investigator and Jeff Daniels the wacky, lazy neighbor, all of the comedic bases are covered. In the middle of all of this madness, one minor thing is forgotten: The detective is a heart-transplant patient! Once the action finally picks up, the severe chest pains and shortness of breath McCaleb had been experiencing earlier just fade out of the storyand shouldnt sleeping with a woman 30 years his younger be reason enough to monitor this old dogs vitals? Blood Work tries to do too much in too little time and ends up losing all focus.