Screenwriting crimes

>> Clint Eastwood's True Crime doesn't pay

by MATTHEW HAYS

What an ideological mishmash Clint Eastwood is. Pegging him wasn't so difficult in the '70s; fresh from some Westerns and war movies, Clint was Dirty Harry, blowing away criminals--who more often than not happened to be minorities--faster than anyone could say "fascist." His 1971 directorial debut, Play Misty for Me, was slammed by critics as being barely-veiled misogyny and homophobia.

But Clint has evolved. His Oscar-winning Unforgiven was a warning about the excesses of power (one that some interpreted as a commentary on the Rodney King beating), and last year's Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil had Clint tackling gay and cross-gender themes.

With True Crime, Clint plays Steve Everett, a rather washed-up alcoholic journalist, who, after being fired from the New York Times for sleeping with a higher-up's daughter, has been relocated to the small-time Oakland Tribune in "Bumfuck, California."

After a cub reporter is killed in a car accident, Clint is assigned to replace her in profiling a convicted murderer on death row. Now grappling with issues of racial prejudice, Clint is convinced the man, an African American, is innocent. The film follows Clint through an arduous day of investigative reporting; at one minute after midnight, the man will be executed. It's a race against the clock, and as Clint works to gain a reprieve for the convict, his personal life collapses, Affliction style.

That Clint is a talented director is a given. There are some fine moments in True Crime: scenes involving the convict's final moments with his wife and daughter are excruciating; James Woods and Denis Leary deliver some hilarious banter as Clint's disapproving editors.

But then there are the rotten bits--the work, I suspect, of malpracticing script doctors. Clumsy exposition abounds, clues drop on Clint's lap as if by magic, and entirely unnecessary scenes clog up the story's economy. A fairly extensive re-edit and this might actually turn into a great movie.

Most notable is the film's conclusion, reached after much nail-biting suspense, as to whether or not Clint will manage to stay the execution in time. In a final scene about as subtle as those found in episodes of Scooby-Doo, the entire scenario is wrapped up far, far too neatly. One can only hope the scene is intended to be read as fantasy. If it is, it's a clever touch by director Eastwood. If it isn't, he's gone soft in the head.

True Crime opens Friday, March 19