CLINT EASTWOOD VI / THE LAST YEARS: NEVER SURRENDER
Eastwood and Damon paired again to shoot one of the most underrated and overlooked films in the former's entire career (this is, as usual, a personal opinion), the very interesting HEREAFTER, premiered at the end of 2010. Clint resorts to the supernatural once again, and the plot revolves around three intertwined stories about people somehow damaged by death and their own connections to dead people. Matt Damon plays GEORGE LONEGAN, a clairvoyant who loses interest in his gift, and he is confronted by beautiful belgian actressun CÉCILE DE FRANCE, who portrays MARIE LELAY, a french journalist who, while in India for work, survives the brutal tsunami who took place in the Indian Ocean in December, 2004. Other performers are BRYCE DALLAS HOWARD, the well known daughter of the already mentioned Ron Howard, and JAY MOHR.
This movie was shaped after an improvised script written by the renowned londoner screenplayer and playwright PETER MORGAN, who wrote it out of the blue, without it being assigned by anybody. The script reached the attention of a Clint Eastwood drawn to the idea of filming a movie with some supernatural traits and to how Morgan had included actual facts in the fiction.
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| The film poster, showing a premier date already in 2011, as it happened in Spain |
Pretty much as in Invictus case, Hereafter had little trouble to loosely double its original budget, but unlike that one, the critics were mixed and I liked it a lot. I found remarkable the scenes shot in London, for I think this film is the only one, together with Million Dollar Baby, in Eastwood's filmography, in which said city is shown (Maggie and Frankie travel to Europe so she can fight and I think there are some combats in England, because I remember having seen the Union Jack somewhere). Be that as it may, I like the two main roles and Damon's and De France's performances. And like a film like THE IMPOSSIBLE (J.A. BAYONA, 2012) would show soon after, all the scenes concerning the tsunami are quite striking. But above all, I'm drawn for once to the movie's relationship with the supernatural and the hereafter, and the unscrupulous use that some people make of it to cash in on the powerlessness, the good intentions and the ignorance of others.
The critics did not agree with me, but Roger Ebert was pleasantly surprised due to the kind treatment that, according to him, the flick provides that hypothetical life beyond death with. But the good reviews were in the minority (the usual websites do not show a lot of enthusiasm by the audience), with the critics stating that the premise is good food for thought, but the plot is not on par with it. Some say the film sometimes even crosses the line towards embarrassment (I do not remeber anything of the sort, although some years have gone by and I have not revisited this movie), although everything is balanced by some thrill, a peculiar sense of humour and a realistic take on the supernatural, if something like that makes sense. At the same time, this movie is sometimes pigeonholed with titles like THE SIXTH SENSE (M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN, 1999), etc, and I don't think that's right.
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| De France and Damon sharing a scene |
Hereafter got an Academy Awards nomination, for best visual effects, but it did not win.
Clint Eastwood wrote the score, once again.
Regarding the trivia, it needs to be said that Clint Eastwood had been pleasingly impressed by Matt Damon's work in Invictus, to the extent he even rescheduled the shooting, so that a very busy Damon (already filming THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU, by GEORGE NOLFI, 2011) could fulfill his responsibilities and take part in Hereafter as well. But before the two of them reached that agreement, Damon himself adviced Eastwood to give his role to someone else, being CHRISTIAN BALE, one of my favourites, a candidate. Eastwood did not want to and they agreed on stopping the filming for around two months, until Damon could be available again.
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| Eastwood instructs an attentive Cécile De France |
In order to portray the two english twins, JASON and MARCUS, Eastwood preferred kids with no acting background than experienced ones. Those kids, siblings FRANKIE and GEORGE MCLAREN, played one twin each, although they ended up playing both of them the same one.
The filming took place in several countries (France, England and the States), but the whole project had its base in the United Kingdom, due to british funding and tax benefits.
And as a very dramatic and unlucky coincidence, it has to be mentioned that this film was premiered in Japan at the end of February, 2011, but only a few days later, on the 11th of March, took place in the japanese region of Tõhoku, the most powerful recorded eartquake (together with a tsunami) in Japan's history (since modern seismography began, at the beginning of the XX century, and fourth ever). Around twenty thousand people lost their lives, leaving missed and injured ones aside, besides the enormous damages caused by the disaster, so Hereafter was removed from the japanese theatres before due time, because its horrific scenes depicting 2004's tsunami were not the most suitable ones to watch at that time.
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| Lonegan tries to move on with Melanie (Howard) |
During a career like his it makes sense that Clint Eastwood gets to work with some of the most prestigious actors and directors, and his next film, the biopic called J. EDGAR (2011), was going to add another big name to that list: no other than the one and only LEONARDO DICAPRIO, arguably one of the most relevant american actors of the last thirty years. DiCaprio portrayed the controversial J. Edgar Hoover, famed FBI's first director, in this movie, in which also took part the currently fallen from grace ARMIE HAMMER, the always great NAOMI WATTS, the nowadays ubiquitous ADAM DRIVER, who made his debut here with a very small role, and the more than prestigious english actress JUDI DENCH. Another high profile cast which was completed by the very well known LEA THOMPSON (LORRAINE in the BACK TO THE FUTURE saga, by ROBERT ZEMECKIS), another contribution by Jeffrey Donovan, JOSH LUCAS and DERMOT MULRONEY.
J. Edgar uses a nonlinear storyline and the plot shows Hoover's work when trying to establish the FBI, his subsequent effort to save this office from what he perceived as threats, and his own recollections, already as a retired old man (Hoover passed away in 1972), about what happened during the early years of said office.
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| Di Caprio together with Clint at the shooting |
Although it was not meant to be, Eastwood's collaboration with screenplayer DUSTIN LANCE BLACK, a champion for gay rights, was seen by the critics as surprising. Black had written the script for MILK (2008), GUS VAN SANT's triumphant movie about politican and gay activist HARVEY MILK, who was the first openly gay person to be elected for a civil service position in California. That flick got a handful of nominations at the Academy Awards and also got Penn his second Oscar as a ñeading actor and another one for Black as scriptwriter, whom was assigned a script for a movie about Hoover soon after, which ended up in Clint's hands. That could be the reason why the film hints at the alleged homosexuality of the main character (that fact is not clear anyway, although Hoover was someone who lived with his mother past his forties and was known as someone who used to threat anyone who expressed any insinuation about him being gay), focused on the relationship between his right hand and subsequent heir CLYDE TOLSON, played by Hammer.
As most of Clint's recent movies had done, this one did also well at the box office. One of the main reasons for him to be hired was his famous efficiency as far as time and budget are concerned when filming, and he lived up to his reputation one more time, finishing the flick with less money than expected, while making more than double the money of the initial budget.
To no one's surprise, the critics were very enthusiastic concerning DiCaprio performance, about whom it was said that he managed to shed some light on some Hoover's traits that were little known, maybe even by himself. But the overall product was not as well received. The depiction of the character's most controversial facts, public or private, and even how pathetic some of them were, was praised, because it was done in a very measured way, without the film indulging itself in some sensationalist stuff. But it was also said that the movie was pompous and had some narrative issues, as well as lighting and makeup ones.
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| An irate J. Edgar Hoover |
I've done the maths and I think that, out of the eighteen films that Eastwood has directed in the XXI century, I've seen eleven of them at the theatre, but J. Edgar was not one of them. In fact, I do not have any recollections of this movie being on the billboard and I do not remember myself thinking about going to see it, something which is weird, because when an Eastwood movie is the matter at hand I just go see it without any further thinking. It just slipped under my radar and I saw it long after with a certain amount of caution and a lot of lazyness, being this flick about the life of someone I knew little about, no matter how famous he was, and also about someone who was a politician and a bureaucrat. But it was Clint and DiCaprio who were involved, and the outcome was much better than expected, to be honest. As one review said, a biopic about someone as powerful as Hoover was, had to have something which showed what made that person tick, his motivations, or just give up and let the audience see that the shenanigans of that job were much more appealing than those of Hoover himself, and this movie was not able to come up on top of this quandary. I won't go that far, that's too big an analysis for me, but it is true that Eastwood shows a very often overwhelmed Hoover, thanks to a flawless DiCaprio, and I don't know whether the affairs related to the FBI of those days were more interesting than Hoover's, but the film really is interesting. And there's also everything concerning Hoover's sex life, something he was also said to be completely alien to. It had to be tough to have certain leanings and deal with them, being who he was in America halfway through the previous century.
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| Di Caprio with Hammer and Judi Dench, his fictional mother |
It was said that DiCaprio, already a star in his own right, accepted to lower his salary from the usual twenty million dollars to only two, so he could take part in the movie. I do not know the reasons why or even if this was true at all, but if it was, this detail would be remarkable, although I do not think it had anything to do with Eastwood, because, as appealing as working with him may be, had DiCaprio actually lowered his salary, that happened before Clint took over. Be that as it may, perhaps DiCaprio might have regretted his decision of working alongside Eastwood, and not precisely because of the endless and uncomfortable makeup sessions needed to portray an aged Hoover. It's been already mentioned (several times) that Clint is an austere director and he doesn't like to repeat takes, and that might have clashed with the intensity and perfectionism of DiCaprio, who was probably accustomed to something different. There were no comments regarding this issue, but it seems that the relationship between director and actor got cold, which, together with the not very enthusiastic reviews the film got (leaving DiCaprio aside), make this collaboration between these two stars, most likely, the first and last.
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| I'll do as many takes as I please, Clint. Just wait and see, kiddo |
HELEN GANDY, the (according to Hoover himself) indispensable and long lasting secretary of the main character, was played by Naomi Watts, but not before another star, CHARLIZE THERON, decided to not take part in the project. And before Watts, Eastwood considered the also great AMY ADAMS, with whom he'd work soon after.
Clint wrote the score again and his son Kyle was also involved, even acting as a member of a music band, and, concerning the awards, Di Caprio got a prizeless nomination in the best leading actor category at the Golden Globes.
As for the historical accuracy of what is told in the movie, J. Edgar hits bullseye when presenting Hoover as a reformist, who tried to make his department a more modern and professional one with the implementation of scientific methods, but the narrative trick which shows him dictating his memoirs is fictional. As it also seems to be fake the story, told by the plot, about him and a letter addressed in 1964 to MARTIN LUTHER KING, aiming to blackmailing the latter using some sexual indiscretions of his. King understood that was a warning for him to committ suicide, although it was also said that that was an effort to prevent him from accepting the Nobel Prize For Peace, which he eventually won, later that same year. Whatever. That letter existed, but it seems unlikely that it was written by Hoover, like the flick shows. There is a chance that maybe he told someone else within the FBI to do it. which is pretty much the same, isn't it?
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| The movie poster |
Eastwood went back to acting in the baseball related movie TROUBLE WITH THE CURVE, premiered in 2012, and for the first time since In The Line Of Fire (I'm not counting his cameo in Casper) he acted under the direction of someone different than himself. In fact. I think I remember having read something about him planning, thas deep into his career, not only to not act under the direction of other directors, but also, after Gran Torino, to not act at all anymore. That's why this film was not supposed to cast him at first, but he accepted to work in it as a personal favour to its director, because this film ended up being directed by his usual co-worker ROBERT LORENZ.
Eastwood plays GUS LOBEL, a veteran scout for the ATLANTA BRAVES, who suspects his job is on the line for being considered a dinosaur incapable to cope with the new methods of his trade. Lobel gets himself absorbed in what could be his last assignment as a scout, in which he will be helped by his daughter MICKEY, a lawyer with whom he was a strained relationship (played by Amy Adams). Mickey gets involved because Pete (JOHN GOODMAN), good friends with Gus, ask her to, given that he suspects that Gus has health issues.
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| Goodman, Adams and someone who does not ring any bells |
Scott Eastwood has a role as well (ball player BILLY CLARK, probably as a tribute to a former player for the Braves), and I could do without someone like JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE, who plays JOHNNY FLANAGAN. Namely, and to be honest, cheesy singers turned actors or viceversa are, in principle, not worthy of my trust. But you gotta give credit where credit is due, for I've seen more films with him in them and I have not been bothered by his presence a single time. This one is no exception and the film, being as it is, a predictable and little ambitious flick about sports, provided me with a great time. It's good fun, despite we all know what is going to happen, one way or another, and Lobel's character fits Eastwood like a hand in a glove, being (and this is just my own idea) a non violent answer to Gran Torino's Walt Kowalski, save for some differences, of course. The world that Kowalski does not recognize anymore becomes here the sport Lobel has gotten along all his life with, and good old Lobel, an untrusting and reluctant to some things person himself, will have to learn to deal with them.
And I just can't help it, I'm a big fan of Amy Adams and I must admit I love to see her alongside Eastwood. Like Hilary Swank and her role in Million Dollar Baby, I do not care what else could Adams do, because she will always be the star in ARRIVAL (directed by the great DENIS VILLENEUVE, 2016). Dhe's got many other roles worthy of mention, also on TV shows, but as far as I am concerned, Arrival suffices.
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| Clint Eastwood getting younger by the minute, together with Amy Adams |
You just cannot expect big headlines or raving reviews from a film like this one. It is what it is and it won't go down in history because of its remarkable artistic value, but people liked it (it boasts a respectable 6,8 on IMDB) and besides, who cares about that at this point? The critic said it was a predictable movie, and not very much impressive regarding its dramatic intentions, but lifted by Clint's charisma and his chemistry with a lovely Amy Adams. What's not to like?
It did well at the box office at first, but lost steam afterwards. It made almost fifty million dollars worlwide, not even recouping its own budget, and becoming the second lowest money-making movie by Clint as an actor, only behind (by a big margin) Blood Work.
The film is named, if I'm correct, after the issues which the batter whom Gus and Mickey have to scout, has to hit a ball with a curve.
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| Lobel with his daughter and Flanagan, played by Timberlake |
And one last thing, not a negative one, but sad: this was the last movie in which Constantino Romero lent his voice to Clint Eastwood. As it was said, the famed and multifaceted Constantino untimely passed away in May, 2013, and only then it was known that the reason after his early retirement (the previous December), and cause of his premature passing, was ALS, which he had been diagnosed with a few months earlier. As much as it's true that Eastwood was the actor he dubbed the most times, his filmography as a voice actor includes legendary flicks in which he dubbed to the spanish language performances by ROGER MOORE, Sean Connery, ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER, CARL WEATHERS, MR. T, DONALD SUTHERLAND, JAMES EARL JONES, JAMES COBURN, DAN AYKROYD or RUTGER HAUER, among others. Damn, he even dubbed PELÉ himself in ESCAPE TO VICTORY (JOHN HUSTON, 1981) and took part on the very famous cartoon show MAZINGER Z!
One of the greats. Rest in peace.
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| One of the movie's posters, this time focused only on Eastwood, instead the usual one with all three main characters |
Next came the premiere as a director of JERSEY BOYS, in 2014, a flick about THE FOUR SEASONS, a vocal foursome from New Jersey. I can see this film is often mentioned as a musical one, and I don't think that's correct. It has to do with music, obviously, and there is singing, but the songs are not part of the narration and the main characters do not sing or dance (instead of talking) to carry out their performances, as it is customary in the films of the musical genre. At least that's what I recall. In fact, this movie was based on a musical play of the same name, premiered in 2004 and exhibited on Broadway until 2017 (with some tours aborad), whose authors also wrote the script for the film.
The three years gone between J. Edgar (2011) until this film, are the biggest gap without Eastwood directing anything since the three years that, in turn, went between The Gauntlet and Bronco Billy, at the end of the seventies. And that was the only other time in which Eastwood had stopped directing for so long, since he made his debut behind the camera with Play Misty For Me. As many previous times, he wasn't meant to direct the film in the first place, and once he took over, he, as an exception, asked for the script to be rewritten (instead of using the first draft), because, according to him, there were many things missing.
Apart from the very well known CHRISTOPHER WALKEN (who plays mobster GYP DE CARLO), the rest of the cast is completely unkown to me. Furthermore, a great deal of the main cast is comprised of the actors who took part in the different incarnations of the musical play. Clint explained that he had been pressed to cast much more famous and appealing actors, but he has rejected the idea, because he thought no one could do the part better than those who had already played it hundreds of times on the stage. There's also a little role for two of Eastwood's daughters: the already mentioned Francesca, and Kathryn, another member of the numerous clan.
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| The Four Seasons: Valli, Gaudio, Massi and De Vito, in no particular order, for I do not remember who is who |
This story spans from the early fifties, when these four kids meet and start The Four Seasons, until the band's induction in the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame, in 1990, and the plot includes something related to actor JOE PESCI, although I must admit I've done some reading about it, for I do not have vivid memories of the film, even if I saw it not long ago. Because, if J. Edgar was a film I just did not notice about, this one was more of the same, and even more, and when I decided to see it I just wanted to do it for completion's sake, to get to see all Eastwood's films. I was beyond lazy when I made up my mind because, let's be honest, the story full of songs of a cheesy vocal band from decades ago has to be one of the last things I'm willing to devote my time to. And yet, even if it did not impress me, this film was much better than I had given it credit for, because I wasn't expecting any connections to the underworld of crime and all that. It's not GOODFELLAS (the very well known and iconic movie by MARTIN SCORSESE premiered in 1990), mind you, but the plot revolves around those kinds of atmospheres, and what I thought it was the rise to stardom of a boring band and not much else, is a much more dramatic and meaningful story. Apparently, there are some inaccuracies between some aspects within the plot and the characters real life, but those, If I'm not mistaken, are deliberate and come from the screenplay of the musical play itself.
Spoiler alert.
I do not think this can be tagged exactly as a spoiler, for it does not tell anything about the plot, but I want to warn the reader just in case they want to watch the movie, so that I don't spoil this little surprise at the end of it. The thing is that, as much as this is not a proper musical film, there's a musical performance when the film ends, in a fun fashion, which, if memory serves, it has to do with the cast and not with their characters. A dancing Christopher Walken (someone who was circa seventy years old when the film was shot) is something to behold.
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| Eastwood with two of the actors |
Jersey Boys surpassed its budget thanks to all the money made worldwide, by a small margin, and the critics were not very enthusastic. The music was praised, but at the same time there was criticism due to the fact that, in order to enjoy a worthy moment of the plot, you had to sit through minutes and minutes of brawls and arguments. Some of the best words were aimed to Walken, while it was also said that an hypothetical more important role for him would have benefitted the flick.
FRANCIS VALLI, one of the band's real members was really loud concerning his criticism towards the movie. He said it had not been done properly and that maybe Eastwood was not the right person to direct it. He said it wasn't bad, but could have been much better and, given this flick was all about real people and those people were available, they could have been asked for their input, in order to achieve a better outcome.
A weird move in Clint's career, but, as far as I am concerned, much better than expected.
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| Jersey Boys, a rarity in Eastwood's filmography |
Also in 2014 was premiered the controversial and very successful AMERICAN SNIPER, which told the story of CHRIS KYLE, the very decorated and US army's most lethal marksman after four tours in the Iraq war (2003-2011), and how his military success took a big toll on his private life (he was honorably discharged in 2009). This film was loosely based on the book that Kyle himself wrote (together with Scott McEwen and Jim DeFelice) in 2012, called AMERICAN SNIPER: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF THE MOST LETHAL SNIPER IN U.S. MILITARY HISTORY.
Kyle, who passed in 2013 at the age of thirty eight, was portrayed by the famous BRADLEY COOPER, in his first collaboration with Eastwood, while the spectacular SIENNA MILLER played TAYA STUDEBAKER, Kyle's wife.
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| Bradley Cooper, on the left, dressed as Chris Kyle, who is shown on the right with a copy of the book the film is based on |
Some names were considered once Warner had gotten the rights to the book in 2012, because Cooper (one of the producers) wanted CHRIS PRATT to play Kyle (they look relatively alike too), but Warner stated it would only be part of this project was Cooper the leading role. At first, director DAVID O. RUSSELL, who had had a good string of successes, was to direct, but I don't know whether Kyle's sudden demise brought some opportunism (besides the inevitable increase of interest in this story) or what, because the next thing it was known was that a higher profiled director such as Spielberg, no less, was going to be the person behind the camera. Spielberg aimed for a more psychological approach, and his vision took the project to a point in which the whole thing exceeded the budget Warner had in mind, and that is why he stepped down a project which Eastwood would join during the summer of 2013.
The initial budget of less than sixty million dollars was extensively surpassed by the almost five hundred and fifty the film made worldwide, something which meant that American Sniper became not only Eastwood's most commercially successful film ever (and also his most successful one in each of the countries it was premiered), but also the most commercially successful war film ever, beating the record that Spielberg himself had since 1998 with SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. And that, among other records, because, for instance, being a contender for best movie at the 2015 Academy Awards, it had made as much money at the box office as the rest of the candidates put together had.
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| The american sniper targeting the box office straightaway |
The scores on the usual webs show a good reception (7,3 on IMDB), and the film was praised as an explicit tribute to the real story it's based upon. The film was welcomed by the critic at large, as Clint's direction was, and also an enormous performance by Cooper (another example of a good looking actor who came out of the blue and showed much more than he was expected to, to eventually end up as one of today's most important male performers), but this movie, being all about a subject like this, stirred a great deal of controversy.
Spoiler alert.
Before I start commenting a few things on what was said about the film, I have to say that, as usual, I went to the theatre to see it and enjoyed it a lot. I know I may be biased and look at everything pertaining Eastwood with a different mindset, but that is something he's earned. I remember this flick as quite tense and sad, for Kyle had to cope with the memories that are supposed to haunt someone who, although within the context of a war, has killed dozens of people. This led to him, once he had been discharged, having issues to deal with a civilian's everyday life. However in the movie, after a shrink had asked him whether he felt haunted by everything he had done while on duty, his response was that it was thinking of those he could not save what haunted him, and that's why he was adviced, as a therapy, to help and be by the side of those severley injured and with similar issues as himself. This helped Kyle's mind to, little by little, adjust to his new reality, until he was murdered (together with a friend of his) by one of those people (someone affected by post-traumatic stress) he was helping.
As for that tension I explained above (not to mention its brutal impact), a stand out scene is that one in which Kyle must terminate two people, presumably mother and son (I've read the boy was an addition to the film and did not exist in real life), because they were going to put an american tank at risk with an explosive artifact. Kyle just stares at the boy's dead body through his lens, aware of what he's been forced to do, an reacts in a disdainfully way when his partner congratulates him. And even more striking is another one in which the main character takes down a guy with a rocket launcher or something similar, and right after that, a very young kid arrives where the dead man is and with so much effort gets to raise the weapon with the intention to use it. Kyle mutters the words Don't pick it up several times, and when he has given up and realizes he's going to have to kill the kid, who is already targeting something, said kid eventually gets rid of the weapon and runs away. Cooper's face goes further beyond relief, given its anguish. Brutal.
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| Clint and a bulked up Cooper |
The critic was welcoming to the film, describing it as tense, sad and heartbreaking, with a lot of praise for a muscled Cooper. The film critic DAVID DENBY wrote one of the best things that could be said of American Sniper, saying that it was both a devastating war flick and an antiwar one, a dim celebration of one soldier's skills, and also a lament for this person's isolation and eventual sad luck. Strangely enough, there was criticism about the film not taking advantage to get deeper into the toll that war has one those who fight and live to tell, and it was said that Kyle's missions and targets lacked a context.
There was a lot of talk, of course, about the patriotism implicit in the movie, remarking that the film payed tribute to the patriotism of texan Kyle just by not discarding neither all the main character's doubts and anxiety, nor the ultimate price that he had to pay. It was said this was a warning for the United States, given the enormous toll on the combatant's lives, regardless of the goal. It's all about preventing war from happening, not glorifying it.
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| Miller and Cooper |
But it was also said that the approach of the film was decontextualized and showed no middle ground pertaining the Iraq war, as it was just another story of good guys against bad ones with distorted facts and focused more on the physical side of it than on the ethical one. The fact that, according to some critics, the Iraq folks were portrayed as savages, with an obvious fear and ignorance, was criticized too. I remember my pal Ramón (already mentioned) saying that Eastwood had let him down that one time, because he believed that Clint had just exhibited a pro-war story (or something similar), and a very patriotic one. I had to disagree. For starters, those who are in charge of telling a story give said story the approach they deem convenient. And besides, we should not forget that this is a real life account, and if it looks patriotic, or Kyle is depicted as patriotic, is because he most likely was. As Eastwood had already said in regard to his character in the Harry Callahan movies, he tells a story and moves away from it, something that means not having to agree with what it's been told. After all, no one thinks that the person behind a movie in which a robbery is successfully accomplished is a burglar or something similar.
It is funny that, in this sense, the republicans praised the film for being patriotic, republican and for its support of the war on terror, to which Eastwood replied saying that was bullshit, and that this movie had nothing to do with political parties, while the democrats accused Clint of being a warmonger and the film as republican propaganda. Eastwood had to tell them that it was just an antiwar statement.
This is a tricky matter, any way you look at it, and Clint defended himself saying that American Sniper was about what war does to those who survive it and their families, something which, in his opinion, is definitely antiwar. Cooper said that a great deal of the criticism towards the flick ignored the fact that the movie was about negligence and oblivion concerning the war veterans, being remarkable the amount of them who decide to take their own lives. He said that, instead of criticizing someone like Kyle, people should criticize first those who put him and many others like him in their situation.
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| Chris Kyle |
American Sniper got a handful of awards and nominations and, despite not being a factor at the Golden Globes, it received up to six nominations at the Academy Awards (including film, leading actor and adapted screenplay, by JASON HALL), although it only took home one Oscar for Best Sound Editing.
There are some inaccuracies in the movie though, in regard to what Kyle wrote in his book, but I don't know whether they were done on purpose or not, and there are also some made up characters. A great deal of what is told actually happened, but sometimes, Kyle's involvement in some events was conveniently exaggerated.
The sad thing about this film is that many of its virtues, or even the whole debate about itself, were eclipsed or directly forgotten due to the ill-fated and inappropiate use of a doll in the film, in order to (if memory serves) make it look like Kyle's newborn baby in Cooper's arms. Truth is, I don't remember what I thought when I saw it, and maybe I did not even notice, but this matter caused bouts of laughter in theatres all around, due to the shabby nature of this episode. It also meant negative predictions concerning the awards season, and the feeling that something like that was going to haunt the whole movie forever. You know, that one film in which there was a doll. Jason Hall, screenwriter, explained that the first baby actor had a fever and the second one was not available, and that's why fast and efficient Eastwood demanded to be handed a doll. If this is true, that's no relief, let alone a valid excuse.
Clint wrote the song TAYA'S THEME for the movie, and he even appears in the film, uncredited, as someone who attends a mass.
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| The picture that was usually used as the movie poster |
No new movies in 2015 and back to business in 2016, with the premiere of the again successful biopic SULLY. As I said when I reviewed J. Edgar, in regard to Leonardo DiCaprio, it makes sense that Clint Eastwood surrounds himself with the most prominent names in the industry, and that's what happened one more time with Sully, in which he got together with no other than Tom Hanks, who portrayed CHESLEY SULLENBERGER (nicknamed Sully), the pilot who, in 2009, was forced, due to the circumstances, to successfully land an airplane (a commercial flight) on New York's Hudson river, preventing both passengers and crew from getting hurt. Said plane, an A320 Airbus, which was supposed to fly the very usual 1549 US Airways route, from New York, and with Charlotte and Seattle as destinations, had left La Guardia airport on the 15th of January, 2009, with one hundred and fifty five passengers aboard. While gaining height, it hit a flock of birds and, as a consecuence, both engines got seriously damaged. Due to those damages and the distance between New York and the nerarest airports, Sullenberg considered that landing on the Hudson was the best thing to do, and he nailed it in less than four minutes since the plane had hit the flock, and with no serious injuries to anyone on the plane. This was deemed litlle less than a miracle (MIRACLE ON THE HUDSON). The film also depicts the aftermath of that event, as far as the lives of those involved were concerned, and the subsequent investigation which was conducted.
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| Hanks in an advertising image |
Hanks paired here with the very underrated actor AARON ECKHART (who played JEFF SKILES, Sully's copilot), and there are roles for ANNA GUNN (very well know due to her involvement on the glorious TV show BREAKING BAD) and, listen up, Laura Linney once again. There are many performers who have worked with Eastwood more than once (being directed by him or as co-stars), such as Gene Hackman, Matt Damon, John Malkovich, Marcia Gay Harden or Donald Sutherland, but I believe that, leaving family members aside (among whom I'll include Sondra Locke), some actors who played different roles in the Leone or the Harry Callahan films, and usual supporting actors very often named here, like Geoffrey Lewis, Bill McKinney, etc, only Morgan Freeman and her have worked as many as three times with him. Linney played LORRAINE, Sully's wife.
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| Eastwood and Tom Hanks, one of the most reknown and accomplished actors of the last forty years |
This film is based on Sullenberger's own autobiography, called HIGHEST DUTY: MY SEARCH FOR WHAT REALLY MATTERS, written alongside writer and journalist JEFFREY ZASLOW and also published in 2009. The script was developed by playwright and novelist TODD KOMARNICKI, who admitted that the most difficult part of this task was not describing the landing, but the investigation which came after it, for the person who was perceived as a hero in the eyes of the whole world might be seen some other way by those in charge of that investigation.
It did well at the box office, despite being premiered in September, a month that new films have traditionally struggled in, due to the beginning of the school calendar and the usual avalanch of new TV shows. But good reviews and word of mouth helped, and the money made worldwide was the initial budget of sixty million dollars fourfold. There were lots of nominations too (most of them unlucky though), among them stands out one at the Academy Awards, for Best Sound Editing.
The critics liked Sully as well, praising its tribute to the typical (or not so typical) everyday hero, sure of themselves, but humble at the same time, and who would never deem themselves as such. Be it for the appeal of the actual story, or for the names attached to the project, people liked this film, and the opinion regarding Sully was even better than that of American Sniper. It rained compliments on the performance of an inspired Hanks (as usual, being one of those actors capable of saving a film and making the audience keeping its attention on it only because of his presence), and there were praise for Clint's direction as well. Eastwood's role behind the camera was compared to Hank's in front of it.
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| Eastwood with Linney, who had already played his daughter in Absolute Power almost twenty years earlier |
I found this flick (once again as part of the audience in a theatre) brilliant and nimble, with a story worthy of telling and with all the ingredientes needed to be told in a convincing manner. I remember that I even noticed some documentary traits in it, because of its way to tell things, and its less than a hundred minutes of running time (short by Eastwood's standards) just flew away. It has to be one of Eastwood's shortest movies ever. It is difficult to not feel powerless when confronted with the investigation I already mentioned, because anyone can realize that Sullenberg acted like a hero, so, why treat him as the opposite? I might understand all this better if his doings would have resulted in human casualties, but, given that that wasn't the case, what are the reasons behind an investigation like that, not to mention the understandable persecution by the media. I guess there is just more than meets the eye.
In fact, this film caused some controversy due to the description it makes of the NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD (NTSB), which was in charge of said investigation, as an ultraconservative and antagonistic to Sully entity, eager to find mistakes in what the involuntary hero did, and to force him to admit them. It was criticized that the movie distanced itself, in tone and substance, from what was recorded in official registers, to the extent that some former members of that board voiced their concern for this film to make the board look as an incompetent one.
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| Eastwood trying to find Aaron Eckhart behind the latter's humongous moustache |
Sully left quite a few anecdotes and fun facts, and some other disturbing stuff:
- In the ending credits, the real Sully and Lorraine are shown while giving a speech to those who were aboard the plane on that very day.
- Some of the people who were involved, one way or another, in this event, play themselves in the film. There's even footage of the very famous host DAVID LETTERMAN interviewing members of the plane's crew, who were digitally replaced by their film's counterparts.
- Sully himself did a cameo at the end of the comedy film DADDY'S HOME 2 (directed by SEAN ANDERS and premiered in 2017), when he appears playing the new love interest of one of the two main character's mum, BRAD (played WILL FERRELL). The other one, DUSTY (MARK WAHLBERG), is delighted to realize who his friend's mum new boyfriend is, he says he's a hero, that Clint Eastwood made a movie about him which him and Brad had seen together (Brad remembers Tom Hanks was in it and he had liked the film a lot), and that maybe they could get free flying coupons (LMAO). Brad seems to agree at first, but when Sully is about to shake his hand he just runs away screaming to the whole airport they were in that he did not care about how many lives Sully could have saved, because he could never replace his dad. Very funny.
And by the way, right before that moment, Mel Gibson shows up, being as he is, one of the characters of the flick (Dusty's dad).
- Warner had considered premiering the movie around Labour Day (first Monday of September), but that would mean coinciding, more or less, with September's Eleven fifteenth anniversary (apart from its premiere at one festival one week earlier, the official american premiere date was September, the 9th). This fact made some executives reluctant, because in the plot Sully has a nightmare in which the plane he was flying crashes right in Manhattan, with all that it means in relation to the terrorist attack from fifteen years earlier. Eventually it was decided to stick with that first date, because Sully was a story about hope and a hero who does what he has to. Be it as it may, it seems like everything was just a coincidence, and premiering Sully around the 11th of September had never been in anybody's head.
- Related to what has been said in the above paragraph, it has to be said that some airlines rejected to include this film among those which could be watched during their flights, out of fear of it unsettling their passengers, but Virgin Atlantic, for one, did play it, as a tribute to the pilots.
- Sully marked the second best opening Friday of an Eastwood movie in the States, only after American Sniper, and it did very well at IMAX theatres (those which very big screens and stadium-like stands), having been completely filmed in that format.
- Eastwood wrote the song FLYING HOME (THEME FROM SULLY).
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| Sully and Skiles, reality and fiction |
- Back to the aforementioned controversy. I've already said that some members of the NTSB showed their concern pertaining what the movie's audience and society at large could think of this board. As if this flick was going to be made clear that it was a useless and incompetent tool. They said the investigators did not want to ashame anybody and that the film had removed itself from what had really happened (for example, the plot shows the investigators providing the investigation with simulations which made sure that landing on some other airports, or even flying back to La Guardia, would have been feasible, something which would've exposed Sullenberger's negligence, while the actual investigation had not guaranteed the sucess of said moves at all), to the extent that some even said some lines had been crossed to reach a bitter lack of fairness.
Hanks himself admitted that Chelsey Sullenberger was concerned by what was told in the fiction and asked for the investigator's actual names to be removed from the film, because they did not behave as prosecutors in real life, and that was the way the movie had made them look like.
No matter how much I enjoyed the film, I find this worrying, because I do not understand, neither the reasons behind an hypothetical twisting of reality with mean intentions, nor how the flick could have benefitted from something like that. If everything was about protecting Sully's integrity as a hero in order to publicize the film, I don't think neither him, nor the story or the film needed it. All this is also concerning because, as ROBERT BENZON (one of the investigators) said, the pilots who found themselves involved in flying accidents from then on, were going to expect an unfair treatment by this board.
The only thing I know that Eastwood said about this issue was that the NTSB had tried to prove that Sullenberger had not done the right thing.
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| Heroes without a cape |
Already in 2018, the somehow a tad disappointing THE 15:17 TO PARIS, was premiered. And it was disappointing because, despite telling another heroic real story, it could have been much better. Not in vain, its score on IMDB (5,3) is the worst of any movie to be reviewed here before or since, together with that of Pink Cadillac.
The script (by newcomer DOROTHY BLYSKAL) was based on the book called THE 15:17 TO PARIS: THE TRUE STORY OF A TERRORIST, A TRAIN AND THREE AMERICAN HEROES, published in 2016, where it is told how theree young americans helped to avoid a slaughter on a high speed train Thalys which traveled the distance between Ámsterdam and Paris. This happened on the 21st of August, 2015, and those young men were ANTHONY SADLER, SPENCER STONE and ALEK SKARLATOS, who also wrote the book, along with JEFFREY E. STERN. But there's more about it. I've already talked about Eastwood's understandable inclination to be surrounded by the greatest directors and actors, but it's also true that, both for spontaneity and authenticity's sake, his castings have relied (a fair share of them or in their entirety) on unknown performers quite a few times (as it's been the case in Jersey Boys, Gran Torino or Letters From Iwo Jima). Well, in this movie he even outdid himself concerning this matter, because, although it had not been what he first had in mind, he ended up choosing those three previous men as main characters, who obviously had no background as actors because they were no actors, to begin with.
Some other actors, apart from those three, also played themselves (including french-american MARK MOOGALIAN, another one of the heroes, who got injured), and the plot follow the three main characters through their boyhood and so on, until it reaches the event at issue. Better known actresses like JUDY GREER or JENNA FISCHER (the likeable receptionist on the american remake of THE OFFICE) played two of the main roles' mums.
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| Publicity poster |
This movie was close to double its budget, which is good (far, of course, from the figures of some other recent films directed by Clint), but the reviews were poor, stressing the mistake that casting the real heroes to play themselves was, despite the film's good intentions as a tribute. Not everything was bad, but overall it was said that there was too much filler, and some lines did not help the inexperienced actors either. There was praise, mind you, for the scenes which depicted the event at hand, which was what really mattered about the movie and the fact it was focused on.
I agree, basically. As much as something like the main event has to be inevitably tense and distressing, and the film hits bull's eye concerning it, the rest of the movie looks expendable. I don't know whether professional actors could have prevented this from happening or not, but this film looks like intentionally bloated (despite even being two minues shorter than Sully) with moments of the main characters' childhood, their friendship and teenager's stuff which lack substance and just wander aimlessly. It feels as if the main event was not enough to fill one hour and a half of running time, and a lot of previous moments had been used (some of them were necessary though, in my opinion) to finally arrive to what really matters. I believe that something like that is Eastwood's to blame, and not the kids.
On the other hand, imagine being an essential part of such an act of heroism, which understandably is going to change your life, and being called by Clint Eastwood himself to star in a film about your own deed afterwards.
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| From left to right, Skarlatos, Sadler, Eastwood and Stone |
What these people (together with some others who also took part) did was, in few words, to stop a terrorist called AYOUB EL KHAZZANI (who had been helped by some other people as well), who would later admit wanting to kill americans in retaliation for the american intervention in Syria. I do not know what the odds of finding americans on a train which travels Europe are, but who cares?
That guy locked himself up in the bathroom to get ready and, when one passenger realized that he had been in there for very long, went to the gents to find out what was going on and all hell broke loose, resulting in, luckily enough, only a few injured people, including the motherfucker at issue, when many people could have lost their lives. After injuring a couple of passengers, the terrorist tried to open fire, but his weapon failed. That's when, after having heard one shot (the one which had hit the above mentioned Moogalian), all three american young men (two of them off duty soldiers themselves) took action, with Stone getting injured by a knife. Stone himself performed a stranglehold on the terrorist, Skarlatos got hold of his weapon and began hitting the man, while Sadler and some other passengers helped rendering him unconscious. After that, Skarlatos checked the whole train thoroughly, armed with the useless rifle, in search of some other hypotheticals assailants, and Stone, a military doctor himself, did his best to stop Moogalian's haemorraghe, who was successfully evacuated towards Lille, once the train got eventually detoured to the also french city of Arras, where the remaining passengers were identified and searched. There were more than five hundred aboard.
Among other honours, the three main characters were awarded with the french nationality and, alongside a british man called CHRIS NORMAN, who also helped subduing the terrorist, they got the famed French Legion Of Honour (funnily enough, Eastwood had also already been awarded with it, back in 2007) through the then french president FRANCOIS HOLLANDE. The subsequent investigation proved that the assailant carried a lot of ammunition, and that the odds of his rifle failing and getting stuck were less than one among a thousand, not to mention that said failing was very unlikely to happen in favour of an Spencer who had headed headlong towards El Khazzani through a train aisle.
I cannot think, for the life of me, what could be in somebody's mind to, at any given moment, risk their lives that way, but this is indeed thrilling, and I'm already willing to see the film again, to find out if I find it better that second time. Because, as I said at the beginning of the review, the whole movie does not live up to the intensity of such an amazing story.
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| Stone and Skarlatos during a scene on the train, little before the event which would change their lives |
Clint went back to acting in THE MULE, also premiered in 2018, in which he played EARL STONE, an old man who becomes a mule (someone who gets paid by a drug lord to smuggle drug, thus minimizing the risk) for a cartel, in order to earn some money and be able to face his monetary problems. Eastwood's role is based on LEO SHARP, a WWII veteran who, past his eighties, became a mule for Sinaloa's cartel, until he got arrested in 2011. Nick Schenk, who wrote the script for Gran Torino, created this one after one piece that journalist SAM DOLNICK wrote in 2014 for THE NEW YORK TIMES, called THE SINALOA CARTEL'S 90-YEAR-OLD MULE.
Bradley Cooper and Lawrence Fishburne come back to Clint's fold, respectively playing COLIN BATES, an agent within the DEA (DRUG ENFORCEMENT ADMINISTRATION), and his supervisor WARREN LEWIS. ANDY GARCÍA, DIANNE WEST (as MARY, Earl's wife), MICHAEL PEÑA (TREVINO, Bates' partner) and TAISSA FARMIGA (GINNY, Earl's granddaughter) can also be seen. And there's a role for Alison, Eastwood's daughter, playing his fictional daughter (IRIS) as well.
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| In command |
Cooper's role was based on JEFF MOORE, responsible of Sharp's arrestd, who was interviewed by the previous newspaper regarding the already mentioned article. The rights of said writing were sold soon after, but Clint was not the first choice to direct the film. Once again, this project ended up in his hands and he even brought himself to portray Earl and to produce (among other people) the movie for Warner and the firm which had bought the article's rights.
The Mule did well and received good reviews, besides being capable of recouping the fifty million dollars budget almost fourfold (this film became Eastwood's third most successful film as an actor ever, after its opening weekend). Those reviews spoke of a certain predictability (after all it is based on actual facts), but they were overall positive, praising the flick as a fitting and perhaps feasible swansong for Clint as an actor, was he to actually retire from acting.
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| I just carry fruit and vegetables, Mr. officer |
As for myself, I went to the theatre like so many times before, only to leave it gladly surprised by the fact that someone that old, who not only directs, but also acts, is capable of providing me with such good fun. It's a pity that the dearly missed Constantino Romero was not among us anymore, to lend Eastwood his voice (this was the only one time in which another veteran, ARSENIO CORSELLAS, who would pass away the next year, would dub the legend), and I remember that Andy García's role was a tad silly for my taste, but apart from that, this film, although far from going down in history as a masterpiece or anything remotely similar, is quite entertaining. It's funny how Eastwood throws himself into some kind of race against time to look like a cowboy (no guns or horse, but with a pickup truck) who does not know what tomorrow will bring, one more time. Earl's sense of humour in some situations (that one time in which is paired with a prositute so he can indulge himself) is worthy of account as well.
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| With Bradley Cooper during the shooting |
On the other hand, Eastwood plays again another antihero, for Stone not only ends up devoting himself to smuggling drug (although I don't remember whether the old man understood properly what was all about or not) and for the reasons explained, but also he's a very selfish person in his private life, and he does not hesitate to put his own interest before his family if necessary.
Predictable film? Yes. A flawed one? As well. Does it get the job done? More so than the previous two things combined, and above the average movie to be found usually on the billboard.
Clint Eastwood was eighty eight years old when this film was premiered.
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| No matter how old he gets; that face of his will always encourage people to attend a movie theatre |
One year later, in 2019, the excellent RICHARD JEWELL, his next venture as a director, would be premiered. This is another film based on a true story, which took place during the Olympic Games of 1996, hosted in Atlanta. JEWELL was a thirty three years old security guard back then, and he was on duty when, during a concert played at the Centennial Olympic Park on the 27th of July, dis covered a suspicious backpack under a bench. He alerted of it and, together with some other agents, vacated the area in order for an investigation to be carried out. There was an alarm phone call concerning the backpack, and, soon after, it exploded, killing one person (another one would die afterwards, due to a heart attack) and injuring at least a hundred more, but had Jewell not done what he did, the consecuences could have been much more disastrous. He was understandably hailed as a hero, because of the way he proceed during this incident, but in a few days it was revealed that, given his psychological profile, the FBI was going to consider him a suspect. He was never accused and three months later he was withdrawn of that status, but the in-between investigation and the populat trial against him took a severe toll on his private life.
This film was written by director and screenwriter BILLY RAY (who had been responsible for the script of recent hits such as the very good CAPTAIN PHILLIPS, by the also very good english filmmaker PAUL GREENGRASS, and starred in by Tom Hanks, by the way, in 2013) after an article by journalist MARIE BRENNER, published on VANITY FAIR in 1997, which was called AMERICAN NIGHTMARE: THE BALLAD OF RICHARD JEWELL (The Ballad Of Richard Jewell was supposed to be the film's title at first), and after the book which was written soon after by KENT ALEXANDER and KEVIN SALWEN, called THE SUSPECT: AN OLYMPIC BOMBING, THE FBI, THE MEDIA AND RICHARD JEWELL, THE MAN CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE (published in 2019).
The cast was, once again, a very high-profiled one, with all-round actor SAM ROCKWELL, legendary actress KATHY BATES (as Jewell's mum), a new performance by John Hamm under Eastwood's direction, and gorgeous actress and director OLIVIA WILDE, subject of some controversy (or rather her role) after her involvement in this film. Funnily enough, the main character was played by the multifaceted PAUL WALTER HAUSER, who I think I did not know at all.
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| Walter Hauser (left) and the real Jewell (right) |
This project had took off some years earlier, although alien to the Eastwood camp, when it was known that Leonardo DiCaprio and his pal JONAH HILL were going to be the producers and also the actors, with DiCaprio playing the lawyer Jewell was assisted by (this role would end up in Rockwell's hands) and the usually chubby Hill portraying Richard. The above mentioned Greengrass, who had already worked with the screenwriter, seemed to be the most feasible choice as a director, but the project, as it had been known so far, ended in 2019, when Clint took over, although Hill and DiCaprio remained as co-producers. I guess the latter's intention of not working with Clint anymore was restricted only to acting.
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| Eastwood instructing the fictional Richard |
And it seems like the average moviegoer and film aficionado enjoyed it as well, or at least that's what its score on the more usual websites indicate. Its more than good 7,5 mark on IMDB places it as the best Eastwood film in this regard since Gran torino, above Sully, Invictus and even American Sniper.
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| Rockwell, Bates and Hauser |
And deservedly so, in my opinion. I'm not implying this film is better than those three (although having seen this one and Invictus just one time, I think the former is much better than what I remember about the latter), but Richard Jewell has unquestionable merits, as far as I am concerned, even if I did not get to see it while on showing and it has been one of the very last Eastwood films I've ever seen (maybe the penultimate), although that makes sense given the year when it was premiered.
Clint resorts to an involuntary hero one more time, who sees how his life is turned upside down, beyond his own control, in spite of his doing something which is ethically correct and having done it right. As happened in Sully, the spectator helplessly witnesses the unfairness (flawlessly reflected on the sobbing of the brilliant Bates and on the main character's face of disbelief) which entails that someone who has saved so many lives doing what had to be done, is harassed that way, although I guess the investigation has to cover all angles and avoid judging the book by its cover. This is why I'm not sure if, when it comes to look for who's responsible of all this, the spotlight should be put on the investigation itself (Hamm's role as the FBI agent in charge of this case is, without a doubt, quite irritating and delivers as the antagonist, besides even doing things which are ethically reprehensible, although I don't know whether this happened exactly like that in reality), the media or just people themselves (even if there was no social media back in the day and things were much different than today).
If memory serves, you could see how a depressed Jewell (someone who, on the other hand, was a clumsy, dim-witted and chubby person who perfectly fitted the part of a loser) stayed home all the time because of all this. How can people go from hailing someone to lashing out at them overnight? Because it needs to be said that, even when the situation itself escalated out of proportions, Jewell was just a suspect and never something else. The spectator knows how the story ends, of course, but Jewell's face (the real one's as well) looks like that of a person completely devoided of evil and incapable and doing harm to anybody. And what's more, he even tells Rockwell's character that he chose him as his lawyer only because ha had been the only one who had not treated Jewell as someone inferior.
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| An annoying Hamm portraying agent Tom Shaw |
Be it as it may, this movie is quite good, although sad, and if each and every work of an Eastwood near his nineties has to be appreciated and needs to be taken into consideration only because of their mere existence, this one even more so. Great film.
Although with a very heavy weight on its shoulders, if you ask me, in the shape of a mistake derived from an absurd lack of sensibility. I'm talking about the controversy related somehow to Olivia Wilde's character I mentioned before. Said controversy had to do with the fact that her role, KATHY SCRUGGS, was the journalist (working for the newspaper THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION) who first unveiled the FBI's suspicions concerning Jewell, and who is portrayed by the movie as someone unscrupulous and even willing to exchange sex for information. Apparently, this last detail did not occur, and the newspaper's manager referred to this depcition of Scruggs as false and malicious, while employess of the same newspaper demanded that the movie had a warning which informed the audience that some facts had been made up for dramatic purposes. Needless to say, there was talk about the film perpetuating the sexist cliche pertaining female journos who sleep with someone in exchange of information.
Wilde herself denounced the fact that her role was criticized for doing that, when the male character she sleeps with did exactly the same. More controversy, because it was said that Scruggs was a real person while Wilde's role an amalgam of several others. This is, the way I see it, a hollow reasoning, because it makes no difference. In the event of Wilde's role not been real, what difference does it make concerning the controversy at hand? It was also reasoned that what really mattered was the harm done to Jewell, to what was answered that in doing what the controversy focused on, Scruggs was being hurt too. More on this below.
On the TV show MANHUNT's second season, Jewell's story is addressed, and Scruggs gets a similar treatment.
Mischievous Clint Eastwood. When, after so many years of chasing skirts and playing tough, sexist and unscrupulous roles, had finally gotten feminism to eat right out of his hand, he goes back to his old sexist tricks.
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| Olivia Wilde as Kathy Scruggs |
In October of 1996, the FBI stopped considering Jewell as a person of interest. I think this bureau even apologize to him because of the investigation. Richard carried on with his life and he got to become a policeman, besides getting married and having two children, but he prematurely died in 2007, at forty four, due to a cardiovascular issue related with his diabetes and his excess of weight. Sad, cruel destiny.
After some other terrorist attacks during the next two years, the police forces suspected of a certain ERIC RUDOLPH, who got arrested and ended up pleading guilty in 2005, in order to avoid being condemned to die. He's still in jail.
As for the previous controversy, is crystal clear that the worst part of this story was endured by Kathy Scruggs, who died in 2001 (after a medicine overdose) at forty two, alone, ill and shattered by the aftermath of this story. It's been already told that it was her who advanced that Jewell might be under the FBI's suspicion, and when Jewell's ordeal finished, hers began. Somehow, that same society which, based on Scrugg's article and the subsequent investigation, began suspecting and harassing Richard, turned its eyes on her for having written that. Because Richard Jewell's camp sued the newspaper she worked in for libel. She, despite getting convinced of the main character's innocence, never retracted, arguing that, when she had written that piece, Jewell was the FBI's number one suspect.
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| Real Kathy Scruggs, on the left, and Olivia Wilde |
What looked like a stroke of luck in the shape of a scoop, became too heavy a burden for her. She began being the eye of the storm and could not cope with it, to which her health issues joined (worsened by the unhealthy way of life she had), and also the monetary ones derived from her medical bills. And there was the shadow of jail hovering over her as well, because she did not want to reveal her sources, and this fact worsened everything even more. I've already mentioned how Scruggs got her information in the flick, which, in my opinion and knowing this woman's history, is an inappropiate move, because that was not true (and thus was reasoned by her closest friends). But it is more inappropiate because of the fact that she had already payed a high price while alive, than because of the sexism thing. Going through all she went through since the terrorist attack until her demise is more than enough, and her memory shouldn't have been tarnished that way by a dramatic licence, regardless, I insist, of the sexist controversy at issue.
The fact that it was yet unknown who the culprit had been, also tormented the journalist, who did not get to live to neither witness Rudolph's (whose deeds caused so much pain beyond the terrorist attack itself) confession, nor her own vindication while still alive, when, ten years after her passing, all the charges for libel were dropped. This is why this story about Richard Jewell is also Scruggs', and it would have been a good thing to avoid making this person look like someone she was not, only for, perhaps, the audience's attention sake (something the film does not need).
And it would have been even better had Eastwood thought about doing another film afterwards, Richard Jewell's companion piece, telling Kathy Scruggs' story. In fact, the paper she worked for published an article (in November 2019, I think) by journo JENNIFER BRETT, titled THE BALLAD OF KATHY SCRUGGS, clearly referencing the one which Variety had issued about Jewell, where the accounts of friends and relatives were gathered. What happened during the five years prior to Kathy's demise and this article could be a very fitting square one.
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| Promotional picture. Hamm can be seen (far left) behind Hauser, Bates and Rockwell , and also Wilde, behind Bates |
CRY MACHO is, leaving the premiere of Juror Nº2 aside (which is expected to be the legend's farewell film), Eastwood's last movie for the time being, and one which is more difficult to write about, because, most likely, it will become his last one as an actor. This, somehow, is a bitter pill to swallow, despite the fact that time waits for no one and a retirement makes perfect sense. He completely deserves it, doesn't he, but at the same time is hard to see him go and to deal with the fact that there won't be any more Clint Eastwood-acted movies. I had previously mentioned that, as far as I knew, he was already willing to say goodbye to acting with Gran Torino (and I'm not alone in this), to devote himself to directing (as he does here), producing and so on, and that if he had acted again after said movie, it had been unexpectedly and, either out of friendship (as the one he shares with Robert Lorenz, in the case of Trouble With The Curve), or because the possibility of telling a good story had arisen and he had realized he was the most suitable option for the role, as I think it was the case with The Mule, because he eventually took over the project and his age also fitted that of the already mentioned Leo Sharp.
And pertaining Cry Macho, I guess that the reason behind his coming back to acting was to take advantage of an opportunity which had been rejected long ago and thus, come full circle concerning a story which goes back to the seventies. And that's it. I do not think there will be any more movies.
It was premiered in 2021 and it is some sort of modern-day western set in the seventies in which Eastwood plays MIKE MILO, a former rodeo star who gets assigned the chore of taking a kid (RAFO, played by EDUARDO MINETT) from Mexico to the States, where Rafo's dad is. The cast is quite short and comprised of mostly unknown actors, at least for me, among whom the only remarkable name is the singer and actor DWIGHT YOAKAM.
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| Milo and a rooster called Macho |
As I've said, this movie's background goes back to a few decades ago, and I guess that's why the action is set in the late seventies. Back then, a script written by writer RICHARD NASH, was turned into a proper novel by Nash himself, after he had been incapable of selling the initial script. The book fared much better, and in light of that success, he retook the script and was able to sell it without changing a single word (?). Time went by and the intention of turning said script into a film never came into fruition. In fact, Clint was offered the main character in the late eighties and rejected it. I do not think the novel has a main character as old as current Clint is (what's more, I do not even think there is a lapse of time between Milo's retirement and the main plot, as there is in the film), but if it does, it makes no sense to me the fact of offering this role to someone who was in his late fifties, back in the day. As a matter of fact, after saying no, Clint himself suggested a veteran such as the legendary ROBERT MITCHUM, who had already left his seventies behind.
Year by year, some other ilustrious names were linked to the project, and it seemed like the one and only Arnold Schwarzenegger was going to be the one, already in the current century, but his involvement in californian politics, first, and a subsequent scandal related with a divorce, last, threw this project overboard one more time. Fast forward to 2020 and it became public that Clint Eastwood was going to take over on all fronts, including the contribution of the recurring screenwriter Nick Schenk (Gran Torino, The Mule). Filming finished in December 2020 and Clint, always true to his reputation, wrapped it one day before scheduled. It needs to be said that, when the shooting ended, Clint was already ninety years old, and, to his notorious efficiency at said very advanced age, has to be added his work as an actor, something which even included riding on horseback for the first time since Unforgiven (at ninety!). And all this, during a time marred by the pandemic (Covid 19) and its protocols and, despite how difficult it was, according to Clint, to film the rooster scenes, to which as many as eleven different birds were used.
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| Someone's upset |
One of the gestures to make the audience notice that this was going to be the last chance to see Eastwood on the screen, was a more remarkable than usual advertising campaign, which included premiering the movie's trailer, together with footage of Clint's career, as a tribute to him, besides messages from fellow actors like Morgan Freeman, Meryl Streep, Mel Gibson, Hilary Swank or Gene Hackman. All this, as much as, according to the critics, did not do a lot to increase the anticipation regarding Cry Macho, showed a proper appreciation to Eastwood which for sure was going to make Clint's fans tear up. Some said this film was going to be just a footnote, box office-wise (and they nailed it), for all that marketing was destined to run out of steam and lose its effect (I don't think something like that was the reason behind that flop). And also, besides the film' showing at theatres, HBO MAX offered Cry Macho as part of its catalogue during a whole month.
Money-wise, it did not perform very well, staying halfway of recouping the thirty three million dollars which were invested. Before it was premiered, it had been criticized, even from the studio itself, Warner's decision to fund the film, but they knew from the get go that it was going to be very difficult for Cry Macho to earn any profits. They just felt indebted to someone they had worked several decades with and who had been capable to steadily finish movies on time and under their budgets. Warner forgot to mention the fact that, overall, those films had been extremely successful. It's Clint Eastwood who we are talking about.
Truth is, Covid did not make matters better for anyone during those days, and besides, I don't know whether the more than one million and a half viewings through HBO which were counted in american households were taken into account when determining the whole amount of money made by the movie or not.
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| Milo and Rafo (Eduardo Minett), with one of the roosters used to play Macho |
As for the critical reception, I'll begin with my own opinion. Cry Macho is a weak movie, An average one. It's not bad, not at all. But it's harmless. It tells a story about the road and an unlikely friendship (in this concern it could remind people of A Perfect World, Million Dollar Baby or Gran Torino) which has been told many times before, but what is bad about it is that, in my opinion, it lacked power, and maybe some passion. Of course, after so many years and even a handful of really good movies during the most recent years, the artistic outcome of this film was what mattered the least and the fun relied on watching him one more time. One last time. But it makes me a tad sad that this last dance has not been a little bit better and more entertaining, as, for example, The Mule had been. In spite of all this, I think Cry Macho is spot on when showing an elderly Eastwood who does a performance in line with his age, no matter that the plot may be suitable to certain situations. Otherwise it had been shameful. But even so there is the riding on horseback thing (good old Clint admitted that the person in charge of the horses was a little bit concerned by this) and I also remember one guy getting sucker punched by the legend. Some things never change. The scene in which he dances with NATALIA TRAVEN (MARTA in the plot) works nicely as a beautiful and optimistic farewell.
I think Eastwood's spanish dubbing was performed by CAMILO GARCÍA.
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| Eastwood y Traven |
Concerning the reviews, not all was good, obviously. It was pointed as weird and clumsy the fact that Eastwood played the main character. I've already said that I think Milo is nowhere close Clint's age in the book. Schenk's script was said to be weak, although I think he only added a few things to Nash's work.
It was also said that the story was repetitive, with nothing new to contribute and similar to that of The Mule or Gran Torino. And contrary to what had seemed to be common ground about Cry Macho, THE NEW YORK OBSERVER said it was going to let the audience down, making it feel nostalgic about what once. Had this been one of his most recent films as an actor, maybe that assertion could have been true, but it's not when Cry Macho happens to be the last one. As far as I am concerned, an opinion like that makes no sense in light of Eastwood not ever acting again. Melancholy? Of Course. Disappointment? No way. Rather gratitude.
But I'll save the best for last. This flick boasts a discreet 5,7 mark on IMDB, something which sets it apart from the more than good (and really remarkable in some cases) marks which its fellow movies from this century have achieved (save from the one about the train to Paris), but the critic does remark Eastwood's charimatic presence and the charm that watching him once again entails, besides the unrushed and simple nature of the film. In this regard, there are some statements that I like a lot and summarize all that is good about this movie in a very accurate fashion:
- Critic GLENN KENNY, writing on the aforementioned Roger Ebert's website (once Ebert himself had passed away), said that the honesty of Cry macho concerning all the things in life that are worthy of living is the reason why this film exists.
- BILGE EBIRI (Vulture), journalist and filmmaker, wrote that Eastwood's sole presence was more than enough, and that the film worked when it had to, and so did the main character, whom we don't observe as an actor past his ninety, but as an icon who, instead of not getting older, is preserved in his own enduring glory. Cinema's eternal and tortured cowboy.
- DAVID SIMS (THE ATLANTIC) praised the fact that Eastwood used this movie as a tool to reflect on is own career, with a story about someone who still has something to learn.
- ANTHONY SCOTT (New York Times) considered Cry Macho a film to help pass the time, with little to prove and enough to say. His advice was that if the old man's (Eastwood) driving, get in and enjoy the ride.
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| If the old man's driving, my advice is to get in and enjoy the ride |
End of the sith chapter
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