Blood Work (Widescreen)

This Aug/2002 release of Clint Eastwood's thriller Bloodwork,has now been re-released on DVD by Warner's.If you haven't noticed,they have been steadily re-releasing most of his works onto DVD,either singly and/or sets,in a remastered form and boy do they look good.This movie is no exception and as always this enhances the viewing experience tremendously.
The story line in this well cast movie is about one Lt.McCaleb,retired FBI profiler.One night he is on scene investigating a homicide when he spots the suspect.He chases him but has a heart attack while trying to climb a chain link fence.The hooded suspect stops and starts back towards him which enables McCaleb to get a few shots off at him,and he wounds the fleeing suspect.McCaleb goes out and we find that he is not only still alive but has received a heart transplant from a young lady who was fatally shot in a robbery around this same time.He also is now retired and living on a boat,and his neighbour is a jolly sort of guy by the name of Jasper Noone(Jeff Daniels),who lives off his dad's stipends.
One day NcCaleb is visited by a woman by the name of Graciella Rivers(Wanda De Jesus).It seems McCaleb was the recipient of his dead sisters heart and she reasons he owes it to her sister to find her killer.Reluctantly he agrees but as his inquiries and investigation widen his heart is starting to act for the worse under the strain.His doctor Dr Fox(Angelica Huston)continually warns him against such folly but McCaleb determinedly soldiers on.The trail has many branches and some of them lead to seemingly dead ends but there is a grisly connection to all of them.Witnesses even get killed and when he goes to the location of one of the murders at an ATM machine,the murderer himself unknowingly(to McCaleb)stands right behind him.As McCaleb's heart saps his energy he enlists the help of Jaspar,whom he calls "Buddy",to drive him around to various locales.A Russian suspect who he interrogates at his work place roughs up the weakened McCaleb and escapes,only to turn up dead later.He visits the wife of the ATM victim and discovers the killer has been taking souvenirs.Not only that but close studying of security tapes of the crime scenes reveals the killer is sending McCaleb verbal messages.
Graciella and her sisters son visit McCaleb one evening on his boat.The son asks McCaleb what the numbers mean that were found at the original crime scene.He says he could never figure them out and the boy replies that there is no number one.McCaleb and the Graciella visit the hospital next day and talk to his doctor.Someone he believes has hacked into the blood donor files and that the motive for the killings was their blood types not money.Sure enough this turns out to be the case as the main victims names/blood types are all on the list.The revelation finally hits McCaleb and he pays a visit to his boat pal Buddy.It was his last name that finally gave him the answer....no(one),as in no"one" in the numbers left at the original crime scene.Buddy is the killer and admits it at gun point.He has kidnapped Graciella and her sisters son and when he attempts to leave McCaleb wounds him in the arm.He forces Noone to take him to their location;on a boat due for demolition run aground in the harbour.Noone temporarily escapes and when McCaleb finds and frees Graciella and her sisters son,he tells them to pull his boat back from the one they're on until they get his signal.However the killer has already hidden aboard the boat and when he reveals himself she deliberately rams the boat into the derelict boat and Noone goes flying off onto its deck.Lying there he taunts McCaleb telling him he needs him and other lies.One shot and he lands on shallow water on the boat.Defiantly he raises his head out of the water but Graciella is there to push it back down.
A taut thriller with a totally surprising twist to its ending,this is a thoroughly enjoyable entry in the Eastwood canon and proves,as if he needed to prove anything,what a great talent he is.I can say with some satisfaction that while I was never a fan of his spaghetti westerns,I latched onto his works in the late 60s and early 70s.I could see the talent on the rise then and knew great things would happen with Eastwood.And while no one ever has a perfect record,Eastwood has come as close as any to accomplishing that in a stellar acting and directing career;while making tons of coin at the box office for Warner Brothers along the way.His is truly a Hollywood success story where Eastwood has admirably done it..."his way",and I'm am grateful to have been along for the ride all these years and am still amazed at his on going output.A true talent and original.Thank you Mr.Eastwood.
This newly remastered edition gives us a clear and crisp picture in its' original a/r.Extras include a featurette on the production end of things,a conversation with Eastwood,De Jesus and Paul Rodriguez and the trailer.
All in all a highly enjoyable and recommended Eastwood picture guaranteed to satisfy all the way to the end.

Tonight was Clint Eastwood night in the Dravis household...again. Just can't get enough of that guy!

In Blood Work, Eastwood plays a retired, aging FBI profiler who recently had a heart transplant. Although not completely well, he's tough, gruff and smart as a whip. When his heart donor's grieving sister (Wanda De Jesus) asks him to find her dead sibling's killer, he feels obligated to do it even if it puts his health at risk.

This is a gritty, no-nonsense role and Eastwood is superb as Terry McCaleb. Jeff Daniels, who plays Eastwood's neighbor and younger sidekick, is well cast, also. Brian Helgeland, "L.A. Confidential" Oscar-winner, wrote a sharp, sensible script that is pure Eastwood all the way. "Blood Work" is adapted from a novel by Michael Connelly.

Some people may chuckle at a brief love scene between Eastwood and De Jesus, but I think he will always be a sensual man, so had no problems with that. It was a realistic portrayal... But I did giggle when his real-life wife, Dina Ruiz, popped up in a scene with microphone in hand, trying to get a quote from Eastwood's character, Terry McCaleb. That was a cameo role at its best. :-)

Eastwood is my favorite all-time actor, no matter what his age. The man has stamina and great box-office appeal at 72 or 22!

Blood Work is an exciting thriller with edge-of-your-seat pacing, great action and an excellent cast. I highly recommend it.

Reviewed by Betty Dravis, July 22, 2010
Author of "Dream Reachers" (with Chase Von) and other books

The recent political climate in which this film is set against, is Eastwood's interest in victims from a conservative standpoint. It should be stated, and he stated this on tv today, he approaches the subject not from the standpoint of a party hack or representing a party, but from the standpoint of the artist, in response to the community where he lives to search out a way so that in the future victimization is lessenned. Romney has taken up this theme in the election, who as a religious person has philosophical and human(e) interest for him...in the bonus feature a costar of spanish ethnic background talks of Eastwood the 'man of elysian fields' the heavely realm which occupies the actor's imagination and prompts and stirs him in his work. He's a man with a spanish heart. Recall his film Two Mules for Sister Sara with Shirley Maclaine. He talks of the maturity of people as a way to spring forward and maturity is apparent in his view of people. The film is not thought to be one of his better roles, and the private eye has him going against type, in a genre mastered by James Garner, who can really replace him, and such icons of the past as Robert Mitchum and Humphrey Bogart. So this film presents Eastwood with a challenge. Plus, as a classic actor whoose movies are watched like no other american, he knows he will be under the microscope. He mentions in the bonus feature he recently made Space Cowboys with some old stars, perhaps the thought that this film really has a private eye..and he in no way tries to match or replicate these old actors way of doing the role, and I believe that's why the audience may feel its not him at his best, I disagree with that, he's just in different terrain...and although Space Cowboys was a differnet area in which he stands out in a good film...here he's being compared to the genre...with great actors. We are in an area of some controversey, FBI profiling, heart transplant and a vctim or two, and an ethnic discussion of a Russian, a hardworking person working for little money, who robs a Chinese shopkeeper. Also along is Jeff Daniels in an intersting role whom Eastwood in Shakespearean language calls an excellent actor excelling in 'bufoonery.' The chief we are told has a problem,he is seen to be a voyeur which may effect his profiling skills...the change from old policing to more modern investigative techniques...as in other films the Eastwood character stresses doing a good job, professionalism. As in the other films in rescuing the victim, he is the 'lone ranger' sans Tonto. he realizes he is against a hateful-evil- thing...this is very old fashioned language, and is focused on his dramatization of stories on victims, abandondoning the social sciences and describing things in terms of evil...why are some good and bad. There are also references to Valentine's Day..a few references and love...and scenes of carnage and slaughter and gory bloodied victims...our broken society in ways if only love was stronger than death as the disgusting images reappear and at films end the perpetrator is extinguished...if that is really aresolution? But that's our world..the film talks of the integrity of crime investigations..or its converse...in relation to the plight of and rescue of victims,,,and Eastwood's character has a new physical heart...and is a renaissance of sorts figure...a new heart to make a new world...but just him alone...there are many spanish costars and a mexico angle in film and he takes picture with these stars in bonus feature...Eastwood is really in a territorry mastered by others...but he puts in a good performance well in line thematically with his other films...