Review Preview: The plot may not stay strong throughout, but Clint Eastwood has brought together a script with phenomenal dialogue and first-rate performances.
"True Crime" stars Clint Eastwood as washed up reporter Steve Everett, one of those film characters who doesn't seem like he's got much left and in definite need of redemption. He's got a fairly
rocky(to put it lightly) relationship with his wife, quite a few problems at work, he's having relationships with women less than half his age and to top things off, he's trying to quit his rather nasty drinking habit. The film
follows the story of Everett inheriting a "human relations piece" from a female co-reporter he was having a relationship with when she is suddenly killed in a car
crash. The story is of a young African American man on death row who may or may not be innocent of the crime he's accused of: killing a young woman in a convience store robbery
in broad daylight.
Even though the story doesn't always hold up for the running time, Eastwood has certainly done an incredible job here bringing great(and some even fantastic) performances
out of his actors. These are not one-dimensional characters, either. They are wonderfully rich and fully written. There's his editor-in-chief(played by James Woods in
an absolutely electric performance), his editor( Dennis Leary in yet another excellent performance) and other small characters that pop out of the chaos of the
newsroom, where the best scenes of the film are contained. There are scenes in this newsroom, exchanges of dialogue between Eastwood and Leary or Eastwood and Woods
or a triangle arguement between all three, that are wonderfully sharp and absolutely engrossing to watch. These scenes have a spark to them that give the movie
a serious momentum: I was not bored for one out of the 127 minutes.
Everett begins doing research into the background of the case and slowly, naturally, begins to do a little investigation and realizes that there is more to the case
than meets the eye. What I found refreshing was the pace at which Everett put the pieces together; he's not given all the answers right away and when he does
get them, they aren't implausable or predictable. I really enjoyed the flow of the film as well; it starts off slowly and then builds fantastically, little by little.
At one point, Steve finds himself stuck with taking his daughter to the zoo in the middle of tracking down a lead. He simply makes a game out of the situation,
making the trip a game with his daughter to see how fast he can run(literally) her through the zoo while she sits in a stroller, a game that doesn't exactly end well. You can see a perfect example of the
perfection of the building tension throughout the film in one scene where Everett is interviewing the convicted man. It starts off with basic conversation and slowly,
it builds up, with a richly detailed and careful pace, to a fierce confrontation that only makes Everett more eager to find proof of the man's innocence.
The convicted man is played by Isaiah Washington, who was recently seen in "Out Of Sight". He gives a very, very strong performance as a man facing his last hours,
and his interaction with his wife and young daughter during these scenes is frequently heartbreaking. I don't know the name of the girl who played the daughter
of Washington's character, but it's the debut of a natural actress. The girl gives the simple act of not being able to find a green crayon to finish a picture
for her father great emotional impact.
The film comes back to the newsroom every so often and it's wonderful how the film pushes off from these points, gaining momentum till the final reel: "True Crime"
even has a very sharp plot twist to throw at us before it really starts chugging along as Everett begins to race to beat the clock in his search for information. The final
sequences are staged smartly and bring out every last bit of tension as "True Crime" builds to near overload, but thanks to Eastwood's incredible skill, it's never
implausable and, in this film, it had me on the edge of my seat.
"True Crime" is a finely crafted film by Eastwood and his team of writers(Stephen Schiff, Larry Gross, Paul Brickman) that is thrillingly smart and constently
powerful. There are even some scenes where Eastwood works in some instances of sharp and very funny humor, especially in the newsroom. Performances are excellent across the board,
especially James Woods and Eastwood; the scenes between the two of them just crackle with energy. The film does go a bit too overboard in terms of the emotional
level at times and there are a few minutes here and there that could have been trimmed. These are minor complaints though, in a film that works so hard at putting
together a film of the highest quality for its length.
I left the theater with a smile on my face, the film is just that good. This a film that is done by an absolute professional; the performances, the dialogue and especially the pacing, work
gloriously well in a film that I would definitely see again. Great characters and memorable scenes make "True Crime" truly grand entertainment.
