Night-Tripping LAPDs

Rating: 8/10 (3 December 2008)

In Act I, Scene I, of Henry IV Part I the king, having just learned of Hotspur's latest triumph (his army left 10,000 Scots dead and he took several important prisoners) is reminded of his own son, Prince Hal, at this stage something of a wastrel; the king expresses his dearest wish: 'Oh, that it could be proved that some night-tripping fairy had exchanged in cradle clothes our children where they lay and called mine Percy, his Plantaganet, then would I have his Harry and he mine ...' It's doubtful the LAPD had time to read Shakespeare circa 1928 because they were too busy with corruption, incompetence and framing anyone who dared to question their integrity. This could so easily be portraying Tony Blair's and now Gordon Brown's government exactly 90 years later. As Frank Sinatra's character in Suddenly put it, nothing changes. With a flashy role it's probably true to say that Angelina Jolie is courting the Oscar but it's too glib a charge to level - as it has been - at the film as a whole. Clint Eastwood is as fine a filmmaker as any working in Hollywood and seldom disappoints behind the camera. If this were fiction he would surely not have dared portray a State Asylum in which the chief psychiatrist was in the hip pocket of the LAPD and virtually every nurse was a certified sadist but it is, we are assured, a true story. Apart from Jolie and a strangely subdued John Malkovitch the only halfway decent character is the Steve Martin lookalike who inadvertently solves the mystery of Jolie's missing son. My advice: ignore the negative criticism and check this one out.