Eastwood Surpasses Spielberg as the Most Manipulative Moviemaker

Rating: 2/10 (8 November 2014)

Crying...Nice Wardrobes...More Crying...Nice Production Design...Still More Crying...Children in Deep Peril...Sobbing...Corruption Everywhere...More Sobbing...Politicians, Police, Doctors All in on the Gut-Wrenching Conspiracy...Still More Sobbing.
This is One of the Most Manipulative Movie's Ever Made. Eastwood Shamelessly Baits the Oscars with Overwrought, Melodrama that doesn't Pull on the Heartstrings, it Yanks Them from the Chest and Stomps and Thumps Them Until You Beg for Mercy.
All the Characters, and that Means All, are One Dimensional Bores. John Malkovich, Angelina Jolie, and the Trio of Children. The Film Flogs the Premise Until it is Shredded into an Intolerable Amount of Lingering as it Lays Out its Obvious Message Over and Over Again just in case You Dozed Off and Need a Wake Up Refresher.
We Get it Mr. Eastwood. There Needs to be Reform and Truth Needs to be Told to Power. But Shouting it with a Bull Horn is Not the Best Way to Inform Through Entertaining Enlightenment. This Type of Thing does not Call to Arms, it Sends People in Retreat to Get Away from the Sentimental Sermonizing and Didactic Display.
Eastwood is a Pretty Lame Director and is Overrated to an Extreme. This May be His Worst Non-Western as a Director. He Showed Such Promise with His Debut, Play Misty for Me (1971) and has Gone Nowhere Artistically Since. So Much So that One Wonders if Most of "Misty" was Handled or at Least Supervised by His Friend Don Siegel.