Unforgiven (1992) dir. Clint Eastwood
Starring: Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman, Richard Harris, Saul Rubinek, Frances Fisher

***½

By Alan Bacchus

This was the career turning point for Mr. Eastwood after two decades of decent, though ultimately unmemorable, feature films. From Play Misty for Me to The Rookie, Clint had made 15 films, but none with the power and gravitas of Unforgiven.

Much like the story of Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List, the script for Unforgiven was one Eastwood optioned in the early ‘80s, but he didn’t make the film until he was old enough to play the lead role. He knew the importance of the film for the genre and in his career, so timing would be the key to its success. After a decade of only a handful of Westerns and with the new decade starting with the revisionist Western and multi-Oscar winner Dances With Wolves, perhaps it signaled that this was the right time for Unforgiven. And perhaps it was also Eastwood's self-acknowledged maturity in Hollywood that indicated it was time.

Acclaimed as a watershed film of the genre, a Western that ‘demystified’ the myths of the era and the tropes of the genre, Unforgiven is a violent, angry film about a former gunslinger’s journey of atonement through the hit job from a group of women prostitutes avenging the brutal disfigurement of one of their own. Back in 1992 I admired the film, but it was no masterpiece. 20 years later, I’m still of the same thought. The fact is it's not really a landmark film. Sam Peckinpah’s whole career demystified the genre, as did idiosyncratic efforts from Robert Altman (McCabe and Mrs. Miller). These films showed, as Unforgiven does, the frontier as anti-romantic and unheroic.

Unforgiven works best as a razor sharp revenge story, playing into and around the familiar themes, characters and ‘rules’ of the genre. As William Munny, Eastwood is deified as a rogue family man caring for his family on his ranch. His wife is not present, but he has two kids. When approached about doing a hit job on a group of nefarious troglodytes, who, in a fit of rage, cut up a poor town whore, Munny reluctantly accepts, internally conflicted based on a past with details that are unclear but point to a ‘history of violence’.

In town, the prostitutes are sick of the ill treatment from their boorish male superiors, specifically their despicable ‘owner’, who claims to have lost potential earnings from the disfigurement and demands ‘repayment’ from the perpetrators. Gene Hackman’s character, the town sheriff Little Bill Hackett, is complex. While he’s positioned as Munny’s chief antagonist, he’s at first shown, like Munny, as a humble family man, tending to his handcrafted home and reluctantly pulled into adjudicating the matter at the whorehouse. Gradually, when the cards are placed on the table, he sides against the moral right and thus comes to odds with Munny, the vengeful killer.

The film ends with one of the genre’s great scenes, the dramatic rain soaked confrontation between Munny and Little Bill. It’s a stand-off as tense as any duel in Western cinema. The rich cinematography of Clint’s then go-to man, Jack N. Green, is key to creating the atmosphere of fear and violence in that room at that moment.

This is why Unforgiven should be cherished as a simple, well told genre film from a venerable old master.

Unforgiven is available on Blu-ray from Warner Home Entertainment.

Hereafter (2010) dir. Clint Eastwood
Starring: Matt Damon, Cecile de France, Bryce Dallas Howard, Frankie & George McLaren, Jay Mohr

**1/2

By Alan Bacchus

For those who haven’t seen this film, some of you may already know based on the publicity of late that Hereafter begins with a re-creation of the Thailand tsunami disaster a few years ago. This is frightfully timely given the recent events in Japan. Apparently the film has been pulled from theatres in Japan and even some airline flights. This is the right thing to do, but it should be known that Hereafter certainly does not exploit the disaster for the purposes of action or thrills, as in a Roland Emmerich film, but it serves as a dramatic introduction to the notion of near-death experiences.

This is the subject of Clint Eastwood’s latest, a tasteful yet overly delicate film about three people from three different countries dealing with the metaphysics of death. It’s the latest in a remarkable run of films in his senior years, as he has made 10 films in the past decade. Some of them were successful and some weren't, but all special or intriguing in their own creative ways.

In Hereafter, Clint tells the story of three people dealing with death. Marie Lelay (de France) is a French journalist who miraculously survives the Southeast Asian tsunami, but not before she comes so close to death that she ‘sees the light’. Marcus (McLaren) is a young child living in London trying to deal with the death of his twin brother. With that unique bond broken, he searches for a way to connect with him in the afterlife. George Lonegan (Damon) has the psychic ability to communicate with the dead. However, it’s more of a curse than a gift, as his relationships always fail after his secret is revealed.

In terms of cinematic authorship, after his first 30 years as a director it seems that Clint has finally found his voice. A Clint Eastwood film is now instantly recognizable. This is due in part to his superlative collaboration with Tom Stern as Director of Photography. Stern’s distinct high contrast lighting and remarkably crushed blacks look fabulous both on the big screen and on Blu-ray. Clint’s music, which he now almost exclusively composes himself or with his son, also helps define the consistent tone of his films.

Hereafter is no exception, as it employs an especially staid tone, the same kind of delicacy Eastwood displayed in the final act of Million Dollar Baby. Unfortunately, he’s so careful not to sensationalize his subject matter that it comes across as overly precious. For most of the film, Lonegan, for example, is characterized as a lonely and tortured soul burdened by his gift. Damon’s unemotional performance is sympathetic enough, but Eastwood overkills this sympathy with one too many shots of Lonegan pathetically eating dinner by himself in his apartment or watching TV with the lights off in his hotel room.

There are no surprises in this picture either, the trajectory of which is telegraphed from the first act. The mere fact that the characters’ scenes are completely separate from each other tells us that they will have to come together somehow in the end. We realize that it’s just a matter of watching nature take its course as we fill the gaps of the rather obvious theme of spiritual and divine connection from the living to the dead, and even from the living to the living.

I admire Eastwood and company for wearing their hearts on their sleeves and telling what is essentially a religious story without overt proselytization, but it’s too weary and dull to achieve its goals.

Hereafter is available on Blu-ray and DVD from Warner Home Entertainment.

Sudden Impact (1983) dir. Clint Eastwood
Starring: Clint Eastwood, Sandra Locke, Pat Hingle, Paul Drake

***

By Alan Bacchus

By far the most monetarily successful entry in the venerable cop series is Sudden Impact, the fourth go around the ornery, vigilante cop who works in the most liberal city in America. This contradictory setup still has legs and results in sustained entertainment.

Though he was born in the 70’s the Callaghan character was made for the 80’s. His staunchly conservative values and shoot-first-ask-questions-later attitude fits rights into the zeitgeist of this rather unpleasant decade of cinema. Thankfully Warner Bros execs, who know the crime genre better than anybody, never did let the series fall into self-parody or corny cartoonish action.

The 80s is palpable here though. It’s much grimmer and violent, with a dozen or so extremely grisly deaths throughout. This time round Dirty Harry investigates a series of murders of a group of men all killed in the same manner – a shot to the groin and a shot to the head. Behind the grisy acts is Jennifer (Sandra Locke), a mousy and unassuming gal, and former rape victim who has come back to town to get revenge on her assailants. Locke's performance, deeply psychological and intense, is a stark contrast to Callaghan's bubblegum baddies of the '70s. She is simply fantastic and Oscar-worthy.

Key to Harry’s dramatic arc in this one is his new Magnum gun – not a revolver, but an automatic pistol/phallus which he keeps in a case in his house for ‘special occasions’. Of course, the beast of a gun comes out at the end when he confronts the leader of the rapists.

The picture loses some credibility with a couple of inexplicable narrative coincidences. Chiefly the relationship Harry develops with Jennifer, a random meeting between two people, a cop and his suspect. And Harry in a relationship just doesn’t feel right. The idea of these two people having romantic pillow talk is too chilly to believe. Thankfully we don’t see much a romance, more of a silent acknowledge of respect from Harry to Jennifer for avenging these unpunished bad deeds.

As the only entry directed by Clint, there’s a distinct panache behind the camera not evident since the Don Siegel-directed original. Clint’s usual super 35mm process widens the screen out even more. And as far as the famous catch-phrase, 'Go ahead make my day', it caps off a well-directed sequence - Harry using his Magnum force and a succinct line of dialogue to convince the robber of a cafe to surrender. The scene is truly worthy of this great one-liner.

Invictus (2009) dir. Clint Eastwood
Starring: Morgan Freeman, Matt Damon, Tony Kgoroge, Patrick Mofokeng, Adjoa Andoh

****

By Alan Bacchus

I was surprised how affected I was upon second viewing of Invictus. It’s a testament to Clint Eastwood’s skills are director to not complicate a good story. In most of Eastwood films, he seems to aspire to the old adage, ‘a good story well told’. Invictus happens to be a GREAT story well told.

In keeping with Eastwood’s easygoing filmmaking attitude, in Invictus keeps his storytelling his conflicts are simple - the period of turmoil right after Nelson Mandela was freed and subsequently was elected as the President of the country. Though Apartheid was gone, the racial divide was still there due to the ingrained attitudes, and in many cases, hatred, of the other side.

Of all things, the sport of rugby becomes the symbol of this divide. For the whites, it’s an old boys game, a guts and glory game of strength and stamina and cultural pride. For the blacks, it’s the opposite, by the mere fact that the South African rugby team (nicknamed the Springboks) instils so much pride for the whites, the blacks always cheer for them too lose. Ever the astute politician, Mandela finds this contradiction an opportunity and through a new friendship with the Springbok captain François Pienaar (Matt Damon), to bring his country together.

It's inspirational cinema 101 - as my colleague Greg Klymkiw calls it, a 'meat and potatoes' story. But if you were doing a checklist of screenwriting fundamentals, you might find Invictus deficient in some of the 'essentials'. While the overall political conflict of race provides the contextual background, there’s very little intracharacter conflict pushing the story forward, and lack of a traditional 'antagonist'. Certainly this is something screenwriting guru Robert McKee would not approve of and anyone less confident and experienced than Eastwood would likely have shoehorned in another character, a tangible rival for Mandela, to beat. And herein we see the genius of Eastwood who knows when to bend the rules and in this case allow the gravitas of the real life story to surmount any of this kind of superficial conflict.

Eastwood also has the thrilling rugby matches to provide us with more than enough cinematic sports action and dramatic stakes. Eastwood’s attention to detail in directing these stunning matches is miraculous. Using old fashioned techniques and modern computer graphics Eastwood renders his rugby with complete authenticity. If anything, Eastwood might linger over his panoramic shots of the spectacle once too often, but we can easily forgive a moment or two of cinematic immodesty from Mr. Humble.

Morgan Freeman’s performance as Mandela is remarkable and wholly deserving of its acclaim. From the moment we see him appear on screen, walk and talk we believe he is Mandela. There wouldn’t appear to be much to do other than mimic his speech, his walking gate and other specific mannerisms. Freeman gets all these details right, but most importantly he inhabits the internal strength and confidence of the man with great subtlety. Matt Damon is the perfect match for Freeman, bulking up admirably to play a tough rugby player. His accent is on the mark and even his rugby skills look World Cup worthy.

The icing on the top of Invictus and the element which makes the film sore into the upper strata inspirational cinema is Eastwood's music. This time it's his son Kyle and frequent collaborate Michael Stevens doing all the work, but their simple melodies still retains the familiar tone of elegant melancholy of Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby, or Gran Torino scores. And the native South African choral music harmonizes perfectly with this. And shame on the Academy for not giving a nod to the magnificent final theme song 9000 days which takes us out of the film and into the picture credits.

Though the collective opinion of audiences and critics seemed to be indifference, in time we should come to see Invictus as one of Eastwood’s best films, because it is.

‘Invictus’ is available on Blu-Ray and DVD from Warner Bros Home Video

Invictus (2009) dir. Clint Eastwood
Starring: Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon

****

By Greg Klymkiw

Great screenwriting - and I mean TRULY great screenwriting is in such short supply these days that when you come across a picture as exquisitely written as "Invictus" you're more than likely, as I was, to second guess your impulse to bestow the necessary laurel leaves upon it. Therefore, wanting to make sure I wasn't entirely out of my mind after the first taste, I went to see the picture a second time the very next day and was relieved to discover that on this sophomore viewing, it was as rich and dramatically satisfying as the first. There are, of course, many reasons for this: Clint Eastwood's direction, a fine cast headed by Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon and the sort of sumptuous production values one naturally expects from a major motion picture.

And then there's the writing.

With this second helping of "Invictus", I was even more impressed with Anthony Peckham's great screenplay. It is pure meat and potatoes writing of the highest order. As a script, this is no hipper-than-than-hip Charlie Kaufman word-wanking groove-ola-fest, nor is it a James-Cameron-like hodge-podge of every genre thrown into the blender to serve up a mess of special effects. It's a straight-up, classically-structured, old-fashioned story that's actually ABOUT something - REALLY about something. It's replete with food for thought AND works as rousing, thrilling, exciting and inspirational entertainment. In fact, it might actually be what the youth market needs - a movie designed by a team serving the interests of a director who is old and wise enough to be everybody's grandfather.

Clint Eastwood is the father and the grandfather of us all. He might actually even be Jesus Christ Almighty! No, let's make that God!

Eastwood, as if he has anything to prove anymore, proves that he's as great a filmmaker as the very best America has delivered. And, with Peckham's solid script, he delivers a profoundly moving and intelligent story. Adapted from John Carlin's non-fiction book "Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Made a Nation", it focuses upon Mandela's first order of business as President of South Africa after the fall of Apartheid - to bring the country together and to find a way of crossing the divide of race, of colour and to hold to a process of reconciliation rather than revenge.

The film proceeds to detail Mandela's belief in using the country's national rugby team (the Springboks) as the primary tool and symbol of a united front. He has his work cut out for him though since there was a long, deep-seeded history of the Black population intentionally refusing to cheer for their home country. As the team represented South Africa and its subjugation of the nation's Black population, the Black rugby fans would lavish cheers and applause on every OTHER nation. After the fall of Apartheid, this does not change. In fact, the hatred for the green-and-gold-uniformed Springboks becomes even more bilious. Even the White population begins to lose faith in the team since under the leadership of its captain Francois Piennar (Matt Damon), the overwhelming effect of this hatred crushes their morale and the team experiences one embarrassing defeat after another.

Mandela urges his sporting counsel to have faith in the team and he begins a deep courtship/friendship with Piennar, offering mentorship, an almost spiritual guidance and, in an odd way, a bit of side-coaching. With Mandela's near-obsessive support, the Springboks miraculously claw their way out of a deep hole and eventually face the mighty New Zealand All Blacks who have brutally decimated every other team in the world. The showdown has the added resonance as the 1995 Rugby World Cup game is being hosted by South Africa and the eyes of the world are aimed squarely at a country on the verge of major changes.

One of the nice things about Peckham's screenplay is the deft way he manages to focus on Mandela, while at the same time, peppering the story with rich characters at every turn - even down to extras. There is absolutely no on-screen individual who is NOT given an engaging purpose to support the story's forward movement. We get vivid, information-packed snapshots of everyone in Mandela's sphere - from secretaries to assistants, from bodyguards to chief bureaucrats and from visiting dignitaries to domestic politicians. Furthermore, we get colourful portraits of Piennar and his family (including their Black domestic), Piennar's teammates and most extraordinarily, two small, but important characters (verging on being background extras) during the climactic game where we see a coming together of Black and White.

While sticklers might have a problem with seeing all the country's problems solved with one rugby game, both Peckham and Eastwood know there are two higher purposes - to present a general plea for unity amongst race, creed and colour while delivering thrilling, rousing entertainment of the highest order. Eastwood as both an actor and director truly understands the notion that there are ultimately no small parts and Peckham's script provides a great opportunity to fulfil this.

Peckham's screenplay brilliantly takes this one slice of Mandela's life and infuses it with enough details that we get a magnificent snapshot, not only of Mandela's existence up to that point, but a very good idea of the during-and-after of Apartheid. In retrospect, there are a few moments that are obviously expositional, but it is to the screenplay and Eastwood's credit, that the film never wears its exposition on its sleeve while we're actually watching the movie. Even when it threatens to rear its head during the movie, Peckham quickly engages us in some expertly wrought detail that moves us ever-forward. Exposition is just fine in ANY movie, it's only when we feel it and/or see it working that it's problematic.

While the script itself plays a tiny bit fast and loose with actual events, it at least does so in the spirit of said events. (It is a movie, after all, and needs to compress such matters effectively, so long as it does not take us out of the drama as we watch it.) For example, only a persnickety egghead would quarrel with the fact that the title not only represents its meaning in Latin, which is "unconquered", but is used as a dramatic element of the film in that it's the title of a poem Mandela used to keep himself going in prison and which he gives a copy of to Piennar as inspiration. In reality, it was an altogether different poem that Mandela used in real life. Big deal. It works perfectly here, and most importantly, for the story that's being told. As that great line from John Ford's "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" reminds us: "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." (Note to all burgeoning writers everywhere: great drama exposes truth even when you need to bend the truth to create great drama!)

Great drama is, of course, what Eastwood's name has become synonymous with. His direction crackles with excitement. Many critics unimaginatively fall back on the word "stately" to sum up Eastwood's mise-en-scene. While there is definitely a majesty to much of Eastwood's work, it's so much more than that. Having been mentored by some of the best directors in movie history, Eastwood is more than a merely proficient director. He has learned wisely and well, but also knows enough to use that mentorship as a springboard for his own controlled, yet ultimately dazzling approach to the material. Yes, he has his camera exactly where it should be for virtually every dramatic beat, but the work is infused with such a strong, clear voice, it's apparent that Eastwood is ultimately a born-filmmaker.

Given Eastwood's own prodigious talent and experience as well as being mentored by the likes of Sergio Leone and Don Siegel, it's no wonder that this particular inspirational tale of mentorship appealed to him and why he attacks it with the frenzy of a zealot.

When we get to the final game, it becomes even more apparent what a great filmmaker he is. Treating the game like a massive action sequence - one of war, one of guts, one of determination - Eastwood creates scenes that had me and the audience trembling with excitement and mounting tension and finally, pure orgasmic elation. Even though I knew the outcome, I somehow forgot about all that and sat on the edge of my seat, raptly paying attention to every detail and occasionally needing to almost look away when the suspense became too unbearable and, I must demurely admit, to finally cheering the team on with the same gusto that has struck me very few times at the movies. (Those moments of pure animal savagery on my part are still vivid in my memory and include Charlton Heston barking the "damn, dirty Ape" insult to the gorillas in Franklin J. Schaffner's "Planet of the Apes", the sweet-faced children in Mark Rydell's "The Cowboys" as they extract the most vicious, brutal revenge upon the killers of John Wayne's character - most notably when they allow Bruce Dern to be dragged to death by a horse, when Will Sampson as the Chief in Milos Foreman's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" manages to wrench the huge marble sink out of the ground and use it to crash through the windows of the asylum and escape and, most recently, when Sylvester Stallone single-handedly butchered hundreds of Burmese infantrymen during the climactic bloodbath of "Rambo".) With this in mind, I'll allow you, dear reader, to see "Invictus" and guess for yourself which extraordinary sequence during the final game had me releasing spontaneous "huzzahs" and applause.

"Invictus" is a wonderful movie! Eastwood keeps delivering the gold and at this rate, I pray for the sort of miracle that will keep him going until long after I'm gone. Though, even better, is hoping he will at least make a few more movies with screenplays as magnificently wrought as Peckham's. Great directors can only be as great as their collaborators and the whole kit and caboodle can only really be as great as the script.