Review of Blood Work Hey loyal readers, sorry this is a little late, but I got a little tied up on Sunday. Anyways, Blood Work is the latest from one of our aging marquee stars, Clint Eastwood. He also directed the film, which I believe is his first directing guild since his best picture winner Unforgiven (although in my opinion that’s possibly the most overrated movie of all time). In this one, he’s tackling quite a different challenge, as he plays a former FBI profiler who had to retire because he had a heart failure while chasing after a serial killer. Now, two years later, he finally gets a heart transplant, but it turns out his heart came from the victim of a violent robbery, and her sister wants him to find out who did it.
This is a very different Eastwood character than we are used to seeing. Eastwood realizes that he’s not a young action star, and really shows it in his role. This Eastwood can’t kick ass, can’t really chase down younger bad guys, and is no match for muscled thugs in a straight fight. Eastwood does a great job of playing an aged, retired veteran who almost seems on the verge of collapse because he’s pushing his heart too hard too soon and there’s a good chance he’ll have a problem with it. Also along to bring some much-needed comic relief is Jeff Daniels as his neighbor and occasional partner. This is a different, but excellently paced and genuinely interesting, exciting and just plain well done thriller in a summer where other marquee stars have in general really failed to deliver. Honestly, my
only complaint is that the romance angle between Eastwood and the victim’s sister just seems forced, not because of age difference or racial difference (she’s Mexican), I just feel they have no chemistry and the whole thing just feels unnecessary to the movie, but otherwise this is just a great thriller, one of only two good mystery thrillers to come out this year (the other being Insomnia).
Final Grade: A-
9:21:12 PM 
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