Tries too hard

Rating: 4/10 (30 October 2003)

Buried deep within the layers of fat of this psuedo working class talkfest lies the kernel of the first half hour of a good Law and Order episode. Instead, Clint Eastwood stretches what is really a fairly simple case of some not too bright people dealing unsuccessfully with a fairly implausible coincidence to epic lengths filled with soul searching speeches such as one heard in socially conscious plays of the 1950s, before they were dropped for shorter, snappier, more realistic dialogue. So many scenes rang false in this film - in how many working class bars do a group of young, attractive women perform for the middle aged married men by dancing on the bar? Or what in heavan's name did the fact that the Detective's wife called him up and remained silent have to do with anything? Most annoying was the sheer pretentiousness - the fact that the director seems more interested in pounding it into our consciousness that this is a work of Shakespearean or Homeric Tragedy that we are watching, rather than getting on with telling his not particularly clever story? Unfortunately, this seems to be a fairly risk free of winning critical acclaim nowadays, as witness the fawning attention paid upon the laughably silly American Beauty or ponderously dull Road to Perdition. Pity Clint Eastwood didn't review his own early work in spaghetti westerns. Never a wasted word or a moment, the polar opposite of Mystic River.