Synopsis: Still recovering from a heart transplant, a retired FBI profiler returns to service when his own blood analysis offers clues to the identity of a serial killer.

Now for the Zone's Eye View:

By Scott Maravilla

Director: Clint Eastwood

Cast: Clint Eastwood, Jeff Daniels, Anjelica Huston, Wanda De Jesús, Tina Lifford, Paul Rodriguez, Dylan Walsh

Produced, directed, starring and slept walked though by Clint Eastwood, Blood Work is an attempt at a kindler, gentler Dirty Harry as the first President Bush would say. The film follows McCaleb (Clint Eastwood), a former FBI profiler, who has had to retire due to a heart condition. After receiving a transplant, McCaleb is visited by the donor's sister only to discover that she was murdered. The woman requests that he solve the case and bring the killer to justice. Feeling a sense of guilt and gratitude, McCaleb sets out to solve the crime over his doctor's orders (Angelica Huston, as a favor I'm sure). He is assisted by his neighbor (Jeff Daniels who here too much resembles Harry from Dumb and Dumber) from the docks where the two have boats as homes. Paul Rodriguez is here for comic relief but mostly plays the "you're outta here" kind of cop constantly swearing and making jokes in poor taste about crime scenes. 

The film is incredibly wooden for an Eastwood directed outing. I actually didn't even believe he could have made this film until I saw the end credits it is so far off his earlier work in the Bridges of Madison County. The dialogue in the script is full of cliché ridden dialogue that sounds like it was taken from many a 1970s cop movie or rerun of Starsky and Hutch. The acting is on par with most soap operas derelict of any traces of emotion. 

The storyline is predictable and the villain obvious by deduction. The idea, a retired FBI agent solving the murder of his hear transplant donor, is quite clever but the execution is lacking. I do have the feeling that this film would have been more appreciated in Eastwood's hey day in the 1980s. Here it is nothing more than a last hurrah for the Eastwood tough cop persona down to the over use of a Smith & Wesson and the message that killing the punks in the street is better than wasting time with those pesky Constitutional rights and bothering our over-taxed legal system. In the end, I hope Clint Eastwood goes back to making films like the aforementioned Bridges of Madison County because he is a very talented actor and director. I have to give this film a 4.