DiCaprio astonishes. It is a revelation. Eastwood directs another sad love story but leaves his hackneyed, over-used score behind.

John Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI from 1924 until his death in 1972, was a feared and ruthless man who ran the FBI as his personal gestapo. If information is power, Hoover made it an art.

Hoover singlehandedly ran the FBI for 48 years. Not even cruel, absolute ruthless dictators can top that.

As played by DiCaprio, directed by Clint Eastwood, and written by Dustin Lance Black, Hoover is an emotionally troubled man hiding his personal life.

If Hoover was gay, he was monogamous.

Instead of a linear story, J EDGAR jumps back and forth in time. In his later years, Hoover decides to write his history of the FBI. We see how Hoover began and then transformed the FBI into a stunning, feared, and highly respected institution.

Hoover had a domineering mother, Annie Hoover (Judi Dench), he lived with her whole life. She may have been a harridan with a strong bias against feminine men (she called them “daffodils”), but her son became the most powerful man who reigned over six U.S. presidents. [Six as director of the FBI: Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon. He was also the sixth director of the "Bureau of Investigation" under Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover before the office of FBI Director was created in March, 1935.]

Amazingly, Hoover was able to find people who sacrificed their lives to serve him completely and without judgment. After being romantically turned down by a co-worker, Helen Gandy (Naomi Watts), Hoover hires her as his personal secretary, gatekeeper and guardian of his secret files. A mother substitute, Grady appears to have no life outside Hoover’s office. And since we see Grady grow old alongside Hoover, she was a fiercely loyal employee who he entrusted with his damning secret files.

Hoover must have had a keen sense of quickly sizing people up, for as soon as he meets handsome, tall Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer), he hires him as an FBI agent. Tolson rises fast within the ranks as Hoover’s second in command. Tolson had a very important and powerful position as Hoover’s confidante, but he never uses it! In fact, as Eastwood and Black portray him, he’s Hoover’s conscience.

Tolson was Hoover’s vizier but never abused his position.

The relationship seems chaste until Hoover invites Tolson to the races at Del Mar. Sharing a hotel suite with two bedrooms, it is clear Tolson wants a sexual relationship with Hoover. This is one of two highly stunning, powerful scenes. They kiss angry but reach a strange non-sexual relationship based on wrestling.

Tolson and Hoover never lived together.

What was it about Hoover that made Tolson so enamored with him? It certainly was not his good looks or charming personality. Hoover was a nasty piece of work. He was friendless on purpose.

No matter how accepting we are today about homosexuality – except if our political leaders and movie stars are gay – the cultural milieu during Hoover’s long tenure was quite different. Would Hoover, the master of messy sexual secrets that could destroy a career, allow anyone to see him dressed up as “Mary” wearing a wig, a black dress, lace stockings, and high heels in a New York hotel room crammed with young, blond men?*

Was Hoover a blackmailing cross-dresser? Would a man so despised give his enemies that weapon to destroy him? Or was possible discovery the real thrill?

J EDGAR doesn’t offer an opinion.

What screenwriter Black fails to convey – the mean-spirited Hoover who dominated others the way his mother dominated him – DiCaprio gives us in spades. Even if his dialogue does not give us the absolute ruthlessness of the real Hoover, DiCaprio’s voice, expressions and demeanor tells us everything. Hoover was a bastard.

As Niccolo Machiavelli said: “It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.”

DiCaprio’s performance is fearless and brilliant. However, the romantic longing of Eastwood’s directing diminishes the film. There continues to be a glaring dark shadow of regret, unhappiness and lost love that permeates all of Eastwood’s movies. J EDGAR had a small budget of $35 million and only a 39 day shoot. DiCaprio took a 90% pay cut to play Hoover.

Didn’t Hoover ever enjoy his absolute power? Come on! Who wouldn’t?

Eastwood and Black could have gone darker and grittier – clearly DiCaprio would not have objected.

DiCaprio becomes Hoover embracing his hardened, pugnacious character. It is not a charitable role and DiCaprio’s performance deserves the Academy Award for Best Actor. What other performance can beat this?

*The alleged transvestitism of Hoover has never been established, and reputable historians say it’s an urban legend. The story probably got its start because of more plausible rumors that Hoover was gay. He and his right-hand man, Clyde Tolson, were constant companions for more than 40 years, even vacationing together, and both remained lifelong bachelors. The cross-dressing thing is a definite no. The story appears in Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover (1993), a biography by British journalist Anthony Summers, who has also written a JFK assassination conspiracy book. Summers says he got his info from Susan Rosenstiel, fourth wife of Lewis Rosenstiel, a liquor distiller with reputed mob connections.

Morbid medium hates the dead. Hereafter, Clint must write a new soundtrack or just retire to a Tuscany farmhouse to enjoy old age.

I know many famous mediums who talk to the dead. One dear friend, scientist Gary E. Schwartz, PhD, who studies mediums, always says I’d make a great medium. My mission? To be “The Last Name Medium”. How come dead people demand to talk to left-behind loved ones but can’t remember their last names? Gary agrees with me and says: “Do it! Be The Last Name Medium!”

After meeting a warrior spirit master guide during my last ayahuasca ceremony in Pucallpa, Peru, I began mediumship classes at the Spiritualist Church of Eternal Light in Las Vegas. My one condition was to work with a spirit guide that would not give vague messages that could apply to anyone such as “Get on with your life and remarry.”

HEREAFTER starts off impressively with a highly realistic tsunami. A star French TV journalist, Marie LeLay (Cecile de France), is vacationing with her producer boyfriend. She gets caught up in the tsunami and drowns when she hits her head. She goes into the White Light. When she is brought back to life, her NDE (near-death experience) changes her. She loses everything that defined her.

Obviously the French do not know the famous declaration from mother Diane to her daughter in POLTERGEIST (1982): “Carol Anne – listen to me. Do NOT go into the light. Stop where you are. Turn away from it. Don’t even look at it.”

Sullen George Lonegan (Matt Damon) is miserable. He lives in San Francisco and earns a paltry salary as a construction worker. He gave up a highly lucrative job as a medium star. He cannot touch anyone without seeing their unhappy past relationships with dead relatives. His “gift” has ruined his life.
How lucrative is channeling dead people to their grieving relatives?

Medium Michelle Whitedove charges $500 for a one hour phone reading and $500 for a past life reading! Unfortunately, the dead never advised their loved ones against buying real estate or warned them about the collapse of the U.S. economy.

In London, unhappy twin brothers Marcus and Jason (George and Frankie McLaren) must protect their alcoholic, drug addict mother from the constant presence of social workers. This story is the most riveting and the McLarens are terrific.

We learn the origins of George’s curse when he takes a 10-week cooking class and meets annoying Melanie (Bryce Dallas Howard). They engage in one of the most embarrassing sex teases in movie history. I cringed and looked away. This scene is sure to be parodied.

The three stories unrealistically merge at a Book Fair in London. George has gone to London to get away from his brother’s plan to return him to channeling the dead. Marie is selling her expose of the conspiracy to hide the truth about life after death, and Marcus is looking for psychics.

A worldwide conspiracy to hide the truth about life after death? You cannot turn around without getting hit over the head with books by mediums.

In fairness, I have seen mediums do fantastic, extraordinary public readings. I have been incredibly impressed. But I do not know any miserable channelers of the dead.

HEREAFTER is about messages from the dead and it is plagued by Eastwood’s now-overused soundtrack. Why the same music over and over again in movie after movie?

There is a coldness to the entire globe-trotting production that makes me imagine Eastwood sent out his ADs from his luxury hotel rooms. There is no cohesiveness or emotional structure that unites the three stories.

Woody Allen’s insignificant YOU WILL MEET A TALL, DARK STRANGER, and now HEREAFTER, are both lazy movies by icons who should retire and enjoy their wealth. What happened to retiring gracefully?

A disappointment. While not diminishing the father of South Africa, this is a tedious documentary-style bore. Eastwood’s Mandela is a very kind man, but we never get to really know him.

Americans will never embrace rugby. It’s much too violent for our children. Players wear only a t-shirt, shorts, and sneakers. I’m not sure how rugby is played or scored but one thing is a fact: it looks like gang brutality with points.

For the rest of the world, rugby is very important, and why not? There is no padding, helmets, or other expensive paraphernalia. It’s soccer with punches.

However, for South Africa, after renouncing apartheid and electing Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman) president, their lousy performance on the world’s rugby stage takes center stage.

Mandela rightly decides that he will bring South African blacks and whites together cheering for the national team, the Springboks, to win the World Cup. It’s an enormous task, while Mandela’s staff of blacks and whites sneer at each other. They must work to get along. We learn a lot about Mandela’s security detail.

What about the Mandela’s combustible marriage and fractured family? It is as if a director would remove Lady Macbeth from Shakespeare’s play! Instead, we get an unhappy daughter as Mandela’s confidante and the Springboks white captain, Francois Pienaar (Matt Damon), to champion his yearning for a win. Mandela wins Pienaar over by inviting him for tea.

I am not denying the importance of Mandela who, after serving an astonishing 27 years in prison, is released and, four years later, elected South Africa’s first black president. But why not make an exciting, dramatic movie instead of characterizing Mandela as the Living Saint of South Africa?

Incredibly, with the blessing of Mandela, the Springboks actually make the finals – they just needed a pep talk – and they are set to play in the 1995 World Cup against a New Zealand team of Maori warriors. These guys have a war cry. The Springboks have a poem from Mandela.

All I learned about Mandela is that 27 years in prison gave him a very high moral standard and a Buddha-like effect on those around him. He gives away one-third of his president’s salary, he works even while he sleeps, he cares about the families of his staff, and learns the names of everyone he meets.
I’ve been to South Africa several times. Unfortunately, director Eastwood never captured the hardships the country faced and still faces. Eastwood’s South Africa in 1995 is picture-perfect dull. The whites, losing all power in the country, just gripe among themselves.

Freeman never gets inside Mandela’s psyche and it is not his fault. The screenwriter, Anthony Peckham, gives Mandela a sweet demeanor and far too many long speeches. Damon does a fine job walking through stadiums but not much else. He does have the accent down nicely.

The original music by Kyle Eastwood and Michael Stevens, is clearly derivative of the score from Eastwood’s MILLION DOLLAR BABY. Why? Couldn’t they come up with different notes? While the cinematography by Tom Stern of the rugby matches is terrific, we cannot cheer along with the crowd. We learn nothing about how the game is played.

(Warning: Last paragraph of the review contains major spoilers – As it is marked below, read at your own discretion.)

In Vincente Minnelli’s TWO WEEKS IN ANOTHER TOWN (1962) Edward G Robinson plays a has-been Hollywood director who fights to stay relevant as he works on low-budget productions in Italy. Legitimately feeling that he is putting great work on celluloid, Robinson begins to fear that he may have lost touch with reality and his great days are behind him. Few are the directors who managed to stay relevant and vitalize their careers as the decades passed them. Some faded from the industry while making mediocre works, some decided to quit, and some were deemed irrelevant by the studios and were never able to raise money to make new pictures.

In the 1984 Clint Eastwood film, WHITE HUNTER, BLACK HEART, Eastwood plays a character based on director John Huston in the production story of THE AFRICAN QUEEN (1951). Huston was a rough and rugged man’s man, square jaw and all. So was Don Siegel, one of Eastwood’s great influences. Both, as directors, were able to reinvent themselves throughout their long careers and create work that was edgier, cooler and more engaging then anything young Hollywood had to offer. Eastwood follows in their path.

The last of the square-jawed heroes, Clint Eastwood is an enigma. He projects raw energy and pure force, not unlike that of Elvis or James Dean, and can give Lee Marvin and Steve McQueen a run for their money in the realm of ‘cool’. As an actor, his mere presence is enough to make every frame memorable. As a director, he is a man of action, focused on pure storytelling and so lacking of pretense that even his mediocre outings are greater then those who regularly dominate the box-office charts or award ceremonies. Such longevity is a true sign of greatness, and is why few reviews of new Clint Eastwood releases seem to be written without referring to the man himself.

GRAN TORNIO, Eastwood’s latest, is the story of Walt Kowalski, a recent widower and veteran of the Korean War. Walt has seen his generation slowly fade away and his neighborhood turn into a gang-infested ghetto. He is deemed irrelevant by society, even by his kids who try to send him to a retirement community, or his granddaughter who wants to inherit his Gran Torino, a car he built in the 1970s when working for Ford. Walt’s metaphorical demise is strengthened by the physical realities when a doctor informs him he is dying.

Walt Kowalski is that rugged man – the one with the square jaw – at 78. He has no sentiments for political correctness, is somewhat of a racist, and a rather hateful individual. His character is perfectly summed up in the opening scene, when he disapprovingly growls as he sees his granddaughter’s bellybutton-piercing at his wife’s funeral. (Eastwood’s growl alone demands an Academy Award nomination, if not the golden statue itself.)

A Hmong family moves into the house next to the Kowalski residence, consisting of a grandmother, her widow daughter and her two teenage kids, Sue and Thao. Although at first Walt is resistant to form any type of relationship with the Asian family, he soon strikes a friendship with Sue. After the emasculated Thao fails to steal his Gran Torino as a gang initiation test, Walt takes him under his wing and helps him reject the gang and reform. When the gang persists and all else fails, Walt sets up to fight them alone, taking upon himself the mantle of a vigilante.

There have been recent attempts to revive the vigilante genre, the ‘urban western’: Jody Foster in THE BRAVE ONE; Kevin Bacon in DEATH SENTENCE; The Rock in the remake of WALKING TALL; and the upcoming remake of DEATH WISH (by Sylvester Stallone). But no one can out-do Eastwood, who set the tone to the genre as DIRTY HARRY in 1971. GRAN TORINO was initially rumored to be an entry in the Dirty Harry series. Eastwood laughed the rumors off but the film is not far from it. Walt is portrayed with the same ferocious no-nonsense approach that characterizes many of Don Siegel’s heroes.

The beauty of GRAN TORINO as a vigilante film is that it embraces the fact that the hero is a dying 78-year-old man who has many limitations, even though we’d like to conceive of him as invincible. Walt represents the disintegration of that hero by having him face the changing landscape of the American suburb and American culture. Unlike the hero of the vigilante films, who is often haunted by a traumatic event to be redeem of, or take revenge for, Walt Kowalski’s redemption comes in the form of his relationship with Thao.

Walt becomes a father figure to Thao, who is surrounded and raised by 3 women. From Walt, Thao learns of cars, how to fix things around the house, and how to talk to girls – how to be a man. Walt is able to experience what he missed with his real sons, with whom he failed to establish any type of meaningful relationship. He finds a son to pass his wisdom to and help grow into his own.

A popular sub-genre of the Western in the 1970s was the end-of-the-West storyline. Two come to mind in discussion of GRAN TORINO. The Sergio Leone produced, Tonino Valerii directed, MY NAME IS NOBODY (1973), in which Henry Fonda plays Jack Beauregard, an old-West gun-slinging legend at the turn-of-the-century who can’t keep up with the times and wishes to retire. With the assistance of a young successor, Nobody (Terence Hill), Jack becomes a living legend by fighting alone against a group of 150 men and then fakes his own demise in a gunfight against Nobody, promising that instead of falling from grace would remain a legend in death, and helping to create a legend for a new generation – the man who killed Jack Beauregard.

The second is Don Siegel’s THE SHOOTIST (1976), which is interesting in considering GRAN TORINO, as the latter almost feels like an urban remake. Although not one of Siegel’s best directorial efforts, THE SHOOTIST is heartfelt and significant as John Wayne’s last film. Set at the turn-of-the-century, It tells the story of a J.B.Books, a legend of the old-West who is dying of cancer. When a doctor (James Stewart) informs him of his imminent death, J.B. is prompted to plan out his demise.

Like Walt Kowalski, J.B. is a relic of the West, a legend in name, but one who gets very little respect and finds very little to relate to in the changing landscape of 1901. He doesn’t have much to call his own other then his name and legend (which for Walt is represented by a chest of memorabilia from the Korean War), even those are in jeopardy when a young reporter suggests writing his biography, focusing solely on the bloody spectacle of his gun-slinging career, that everyone seems to detest.

J.B. takes a room in the house of widower Bond Rogers (Lauren Bacall), who resists him at first but warms up as she starts seeing beyond his violent reputation. Her son, Gillom (Ron Howard), constantly looks for father figures in the wrong places. After trying to sell J.B.’s horse, Dollar, behind his back, Gillom finds in J.B. a father figure to help shape him into a man and save him from associating with the bad crowd.

J.B. and Walt share a similar storyline; they represent a generation of men that finds itself lost to modernity as they pass their mantle to a new generation and bid goodbye to an old way of life. John Wayne and Clint Eastwood, in their respective roles, load the films not only with the weight of their personality, but being genre icons, carry a fistful of film history (pun intended) that makes their symbolism nothing short of poetic.

(Spoilers ahead…)

With the risk of losing his legendary reputation and afraid of his inescapable painful demise, J.B. decides to choose his own ending by calling out three of his enemies to a duel from which he doesn’t expect to come out alive. Walt, who is dying (the exact cause is never revealed), decides to sacrifice himself in a similar way, by orchestrating a duel of many against one. He acts to preserve the next generation, sacrificing himself to rid the neighborhood of a street gang so that Thao could have chance in life. Gillom inherits J.B.’s horse, Dollar. Thao gets the Gran Torino.

Eastwood abandons his unique emotional style for a drama about police corruption. Jolie should have channeled Anna Magnani.

Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie) wakes up on a typical morning for work in perfectly coifed hair, coal-black eye makeup and false eyelashes! Oh my, I immediately thought. Clint Eastwood has been a major movie star for over 50 years, and it is Jolie who has him star struck! The hell with reality, Jolie wants to look good in her opening shot.

Is this really a true story? Christine is a single mother with a nine-year old son, Walter (Gattlin Griffith). She has no family or friends. One Saturday Christine must go to work and leaves Walter alone. When she comes back he has vanished.

It’s Los Angeles in 1928 and Christine’s plight makes the newspapers. But Christine doesn’t have a photo of Walter. There is not even a police sketch.

I do not know what grieving mothers look like or how they act. The only grieving mothers who have lost children I have seen on TV have been Patsy Ramsay, Susan Smith, and Casey Anthony. I’ve seen more visible grief by women losing out at a 75% off sale at Dillards. I do know people who have suddenly lost a spouse. Overnight they drop 20 lbs and age 10 years. They look as if they have been replaced by someone else’s shadow.

Five months after Walter vanishes, the LAPD presents Christine with a young boy who claims to be her son. Christine denies he is her son. He looks nothing like Walter. Walter’s teacher and dentist agree the boy is not Walter. Since Walter had no friends and he and his mother never took any photos, Christine cannot go to the newspapers with witnesses or evidence.

Captain Jones (Jeffrey Donovan), who wants the public to have faith in the LAPD to solve crimes quickly, tells Christine that she is under stress and Walter is indeed her son. He asks her to take the boy home on a “trial basis”. But if the case is closed, then the police will stop looking for Walter. What can Christine do but take the kid home and put him in school under Walter’s name.

Christine does keep insisting the boy is not Walter and when she starts making problems for the LAPD by holding an impromptu press conference (without a photo of Walter as backup), Captain Jones sends her to a psychiatric hospital. What happens to her job and to the fake Walter? In the psycho ward, Christine finds out that this is where the LAPD dumps troublemakers and wives who will not toe the line.

But Christine does have a champion. Rev. Gustav Briegleb (John Malkovich) is a hell-raising minister with an influential radio show. He likes to keep tabs on the police department and has made it his personal vendetta to fight police corruption. If it weren’t for Rev. Briegleb, Christine would rot in the psycho ward because she will not obey the rules.

While Christine is being held hostage under the threat of the House of Pain, Room 18, Detective Lester Ybarra (Michael Kelly) is hunting a serial killer. Gordon Northcott (Jason Butler Harner) has a young boy for an accomplice who, facing an after-life in Hell, identifies Walter as one of Northcott’s abducted children.

Instead of focusing on Christine’s grief, suffering, loneliness, and helplessness, director Eastwood and his writer, J. Michael Straczynski, leave the emotional core of the story and take us into the courtroom, police corruption, L.A. politics, and how the Earth revolves around the sun.

The evocative, soul-aching despair that Eastwood has demonstrated he is a master of, seen in MYSTIC RIVER and MILLION DOLLAR BABY, is missing here. The story is interesting and it clearly is a big departure for Jolie to play an average woman, but I was never involved in Christine’s suffering. The big red lips and distracting eye makeup keep reminding the audience that it is Jolie up there and that she’s acting. Jolie does let loose once she goes into the psycho ward, since hair and makeup people are not on staff at the hospital. Unlike A MIGHTY HEART where Jolie’s Mariane Pearl never shed a tear for her husband and handled the crisis like a general, Christine does cry. But Christine is a reserved woman with a regal stature.

If only Jolie had grabbed the opportunity Eastwood gave her and channeled the great Anna Magnani to play Christine Collins! I never once felt she really missed Walter.

These epithets of recurrence apply both to Claude Chabrol’s fiftieth film, THE FLOWER OF EVIL, which is yet another murder mystery, and his previous, PASS THE CHOCOLATES. As usual, EVIL concerns conniving among a coven of haut bourgeois provincials who practice those social no-no’s, incest and murder, which keep recurring in successive generations of the old, middle-aged, and young of two securely rich families. Even the oldsters (represented by the great French actress Suzanne Flon) and the easy-on-the-eyes, amorous young (Benoit Magimel, with a superb aquiline nose, and Melanie Doutey) fail to redeem the hard-to-follow back-story of this creaking effort.
Whether EVIL is an homage to Chabrol’s tenacity or to the profligate number of his films, I couldn’t say. But it seems to me unworthy of a Festival which could have booked Sofia Coppola’s LOST IN TRANSLATION in its stead.
I hadn’t realized that anyone, but the old-fashioned Chabrol, still shot day-for-night. But in this one, there is a hint of brilliant blue sky at the top of the frame, reminding us of why this filmmaking convention has become so outmoded.
When Chabrol attempted to imitate his idol, Hitchcock, he paradoxically came into his own. Now, alas, he is only imitating himself.

The Festival revival this year was the British Film Institute’s brilliant restoration of PICCADILLY (UK, 1929/ DVD – Milestone Film), by the noted, ex-patriot, German director E.A. Dupont. Ewald Andre (E.A.) made this Jazz Age drama in London, on the cusp of the sound era, following his greatest success, VARIETY (1925), a German sexual triangle set backstage at the circus. Both VARIETY and PICCADILLY manifest all of the characteristics of Germany’s shadowy UFA style, although the latter’s sexual triangle has a London cabaret background.
Although I disagree with Festival Chairman Richard Pena, who termed this picture one of the landmark late silents, (equivalent to Murnau’s SUNRISE), PICCADILLY is a glorious treat, featuring the 21-year-old, Chinese-American Anna May Wong as a sinuous exotic dancer. Ms. Wong is discovered dancing on the counter of the vast scullery of London’s Club Piccadilly. When she is spotted by the Club’s impresario (Jameson Thomas), he promptly throws over his mistress, the Club’s star (Gilda Gray), for the erotic hand gestures and wide eyes of the truly stunning Ms. Wong, whom American racism doomed to mere crossword-puzzle fame.
Two highlights of the picture for me were the early screen performance of the young stage great, Charles Laughton, as the “Greedy Nightclub Diner,” vehemently protesting a dirty dish, and the elegant ballroom dancing of Cyril Richard, known in the 50s and 60s as the superb musical star and director he became in New York.
Famed novelist and playwright Arnold Bennett receives credit for the clichéd, romantic-triangle script, although it seems unworthy of him. However, the print of PICCADILLY is so vivid and the new jazz score by Neil Brand so good (for a 7-piece orchestra, with Brand playing grand piano) that the DVD is bound to become a collector’s item.

YOUNG ADAM (Scotland/Sony Pictures Classics) is a wan, although reasonably accomplished first film about a sexual cad, Joe, played by the hot Scot, Ewan McGregor. The film’s writer/director is the 36-year-old Scottish, David MacKenzie, adapting a popular Scots novel of the Fifties. The picture has been cannily publicized for its steamy sex scenes and for McGregor’s brandishing his great “sword” once more. In fact, the only unusual sex scene is the one in which Joe pours a white custard he has made (his only accomplishment of the day) all over Cathie (Emily Mortimer), his bedmate of the moment. Not pleased with the pallid look of the all-white custard cutie, he adds a bottle of ketchup to make Cathie more colorful and edible. As for McGregor’s mighty member, I only saw it briefly, at half-mast, in dim light.
Full frontal male nudity is still a no-no for American distributors who apply their fig leaves by dismemberment – not the rapier itself, of course -but the offending shots of one. Colin Farrell in “A HOME AT THE END OF THE WORLD, is the most recent to be snipped, (after every interviewer asked the new star about having displayed his piece). We, the public, are infinitely curious yet prudish about penises, which are, after all, as common to men as noses.

There is, however, a lot of rutting by Joe, a love’em-and-leav’em bloke, who quits Cathie the moment she announces her pregnancy. Joe is also inadvertently responsible for Cathie’s death, when she accidentally falls into a Glasgow quay, after being rudely brushed aside by Joe, who is fleeing her pursuit. Conscience-stricken, Joe delays writing an anonymous letter to exonerate Cathie’s innocent boyfriend (after Joe), who is condemned to hang for Joe’s deed. Joe sends the letter to the court, only after a fatal sentence has been pronounced, so that he will be cleared of any wrongdoing. By playing such a despicable bloke, the affable McGregor challenges his usual, engaging screen persona. Among Joe’s conquests, Tilda Swinton as a worn-out captain’s wife, and Emily Mortimer as the beauty who gets terminally wet, are both outstanding. However, there is an implicit conflict between Joe’s indecent character and the decent craft of MacKenzie’s filmmaking.

Warner Bros. Pictures presents in association with Village Roadshow Pictures and NPV Entertainment a Malpaso production
Running time — 137 minutes / MPAA rating R

Mel Gibson is being criticized for filming The New Testament exactly as written 2,000 years ago. Imagine if he had decided to change Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet.” That ending is a bummer! Should something of historical importance be sanitized or rewritten because it might offend someone?

The most riveting thing about television news is it can bring us face to face with real suffering. Like the Roman gladiator games that entertained the masses with the climax of death (this primal need is now satisfied by fake death in movies and TV shows), suffering is a powerful stimulant. I can still recall the penetrating tears and rage of Fred Goldman and the palpable anguish of Chandra Levy’s father. You could see Dr. Levy deteriorating daily. We expect to see grief when sudden tragedy grips people’s lives. Video of Scott Peterson out on a run with his dog after the death of his wife and unborn son is not what we expect from grieving spouses.

MYSTIC RIVER begins with every parent’s horror and it casts a shadow over the rest of the film. Three young South Boston boys, Dave, Jimmy, and Sean, are playing on their working-class street. A car approaches and, thinking the men are police detectives, one of the boys willingly goes off with them. The men are sexual predators and the boy, Dave, is repeatedly assaulted. After several days Dave escapes but the trauma haunts each of the boys. They remain in the neighborhood but go off in different directions.

Jimmy Markum (Sean Penn) is an ex-con who owns the neighborhood corner grocery store. He still has criminal ties. His first wife died and he raised their daughter alone. He has two other young daughters with his new wife Annabeth (Laura Linney). Now, as Jimmy and his wife prepare for their youngest daughter’s First Communion, his 19-year old daughter Katie (Emmy Rossum) is murdered. He sees the police barricades; he sees his daughter’s car.

Jimmy becomes undone with grief. He becomes emotionally and physically devastated.

His old friend Sean Devine (Kevin Bacon) is a homicide detective handling the murder with his partner, Whitey Powers (Laurence Fishburne). Sean is having a weird, disturbing separation from his wife, who just calls him constantly without talking from an unknown location. Whatever happened between them precipitating her running off is never revealed (and is the only misstep in a well-crafted script).

Jimmy’s neighbor Dave Boyle (Tim Robbins) has married Celeste (Marcia Gay Harden) and has a young son, but he has been forever changed by his childhood ordeal. Hunched over, uncommunicative, he is crushed by life. Working menial jobs, he nonetheless has a nice family. Celeste, for some reason, appears afraid of him. Her frantic behavior colors our perceptions of Dave.

The night of Katie’s murder, Dave comes home very late covered with blood and a gaping wound in his chest. He tells Celeste he was attacked and may have killed the mugger. For the next few days Celeste keeps looking for news about a dead man in the papers. Finding none, she begins to suspect Dave killed Katie. Dave tells Celeste he did not kill Katie but she does not believe him.

The complex murder mystery is laden with other suspects as Jimmy decides to do his own investigation. Dave and Celeste spend a lot of time with Jimmy and his wife consoling them. While Sean and Whitey investigate and interview everyone, suspicion falls on Dave. He fails to tell the detectives he was at the same bar as Katie the night she disappeared. Instead of dealing with Dave and her fears, Celeste goes to see Jimmy.

It is a flawless production lead by director Clint Eastwood. His famous style, pared down and efficient, work brilliantly with this material. Outside of Sean Penn’s very black leather jacket, I cannot recall a single costume or set design. This movie is all about the characters and the emotional impact the childhood tragedy had on their lives.
The screenplay by Brain Helgeland, based on the novel by Dennis Lehane, is perfectly suited for Eastwood. The director likes dark, troubled characters with a history that appears to be choking them. This “felled by fate” tale is boldly exploited by Penn and Robbins. Bacon’s character, as I mentioned, is not adequately developed. However, all three are troubled men trying to function on a daily basis.

Eastwood’s expert handling of the material also allows Penn and Robbins to flesh out characters that are essentially withdrawn and closed off. Penn silently expresses boundless grief while sitting on his porch talking to friends. Penn’s performance and Eastwood’s direction are standouts and will help kick-off the Academy Award nominations race.

Credits:
Director: Clint Eastwood
Screenwriter: Brian Helgeland
Based on the novel by: Dennis Lehane
Producers: Robert Lorenz, Judie G. Hoyt, Clint Eastwood
Executive producer: Bruce Berman
Director of photography: Tom Stern
Production designer: Henry Bumstead
Music: Clint Eastwood
Costume designer: Deborah Hopper
Editor: Joel Cox

Cast:
Jimmy: Sean Penn
Dave: Tim Robbins
Sean: Kevin Bacon
Whitey: Laurence Fishburne
Celeste: Marcia Gay Harden
Annabeth: Laura Linney
Val Savage: Kevin Chapman
Brendan: Thomas Guiry
Katie: Emmy Rossum