Cry Macho: Lamentably thin gruel

Cry Macho (2021) • View trailer

2.5 stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity and brief profanity

Available via: Movie theaters and HBO Max

By Derrick Bang

Much as it pains me to write these words…

 

Clint, it’s time to hang up your acting spurs.

 

Although Rafo (Eduardo Minett, right) eventually agrees to accompany Mike (Clint
Eastwood) across the border and into Texas, to reunite with his long-estranged
father, the boy insists on bringing his prize rooster along.

Cry Macho has several problems, but the most glaring is that Eastwood is visibly too old for the starring role. Yes, the part calls for the wisdom, maturity and measured assurance of a man in his dotage, but there’s such a thing as carrying that too far. Eastwood looks wan and fragile on the screen; we wince when he simply crosses a room, praying that he doesn’t fall and break a hip.

It’s also obvious — even though this is a totally calm story, by Eastwood standards — that this man, as presented, couldn’t possibly accomplish the mission he’s been given.

 

Eastwood would have been perfect for this part 10 years ago, perhaps even five. But not now.

 

It’s distracting, and rips us right out of the movie.

 

Mind you, the Nick Schenk/N. Richard Mash screenplay is nothing to write home about. It’s a deliberately old-school entry in the “bonding road trip” genre; that would be fine, if the scripters paid better attention to detail. But their uneven narrative has plot holes that would swallow a pickup, and the non-conclusion leaves far too many hanging chads.

 

The year is 1979, the setting Texas. Mike Milo (Eastwood) is a former rodeo star and washed-up horse breeder deadened by depression: unable to do the work he loves best, and also devastated by long-ago personal loss. His former employer, Howard Polk (Dwight Yoakam, nicely understated), calls in a favor with a request: Cross the border into Mexico, find Polk’s long-estranged teenage son Rafo, and bring him home.

 

It won’t be easy, Polk warns. His Mexican ex-wife might know where the boy is, but they’re long past speaking terms. Even so — with one of Eastwood’s long-suffering sighs, and an expression of grim resignation — Mike accepts. It’s not as if he’s otherwise occupied.

 

Once across the border, his first stop is a chat with Leta (Fernanda Urrejola), the aforementioned ex-wife. She’s a spiteful alcoholic who apparently couldn’t care less about Rafo; Urrejola makes the woman thoroughly unpleasant. But Leta does know where her son can be found: at the local cock-fighting ring.

 

She cheerfully parts with this information because — and this is important — having appraised Mike, she doesn’t think him capable of making any headway with Rafo.

 

(People have underestimated Eastwood characters for more than half a century. It has become a Hollywood cliché.)

The Mule: Quietly powerful

The Mule (2018) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated R, for frequent profanity and brief nudity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 1.4.19

Clint Eastwood isn’t merely a savvy judge of good material; he also has lucked into projects that required a bit of patience.

After being confronted by a highway patrol officer, Earl (Clint Eastwood, left) must think
quickly, having just realized that the unassuming satchel in the back of his truck contains
a considerable quantity of cocaine.

He famously waited years to make 1992’s Unforgiven, because he wanted to be old enough to take the lead character. Nobody could have expected him to pull that trick off twice, and yet here he is again: age-appropriate for the starring role in The Mule.

At 88 years young, he once again stepped both behind and in front of the camera; the result is a thoroughly engaging character study, leavened with occasional dollops of dry humor … which is unexpected, given the subject matter.

Screenwriter Nick Schenk previously worked with Eastwood a decade ago, on Gran Torino. It, too, concerned a feisty senior citizen betrayed by progress, and stubbornly stuck in a past that has drained between his fingers. It’s an archetype that Eastwood could play in his sleep at this point, and yet he brings freshness to his portrayal of Earl Stone, a 90-year-old horticulturalist-turned-unlikely courier (“mule”) for a Mexican drug cartel.

Schenk’s script is inspired by New York Times journalist Sam Dolnick’s lengthy — and mesmerizing — profile of Leo Sharp, who was 87 on Oct. 21, 2011, when he was arrested by Detroit DEA agents. The five duffel bags in the back of his pickup truck contained 104 kilos of cocaine. And this was very, very far from his first run for the Sinaloa cartel.

Eastwood and Schenk wisely embraced only the crucial details of Sharp’s saga, preferring to develop a more intimate fictitious subplot with poignant highs and lows (thereby avoiding tiresome accusations about the absence of 100 percent accuracy, which have dogged Green Book and other excellent films of the past few years).

We meet Earl during a brief flashback, at the peak of his career as a farmer and flower breeder: a horticultural rock star whose efforts are prized by attendees at daylily conventions, who cluster around his booth to obtain free samples. But this fame has come at a price: He has chosen the adulation of strangers over a meaningful family life.

Flash-forward to (more or less) the present day, as Earl reluctantly abandons the now-foreclosed farm that has been his primary love for so long. As with so many other business models, the Internet has destroyed individual breeders and suppliers; Earl lacked the willingness to adapt, and now stands destitute.

Worse yet, he’s been absent far too much to garner any sympathy from his long-estranged wife, Mary (Dianne Wiest), and their adult daughter, Iris (Alison Eastwood). His granddaughter Ginny (Taissa Farmiga) is more tolerant and sweetly loving, insisting on having a relationship with him, warts and all. But Ginny is about to marry, and Earl’s sudden appearance is more than unwelcome; it intensifies the fury of Mary and Iris, angered both by his long estrangement, and his failure to honor a promise to pay for the wedding.

Sully: Flies high

Sully (2016) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, and much too harshly for dramatic intensity and fleeting profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.9.16

Coulda-woulda-shoulda.

We are a species of second-guessers.

With precious seconds ticking away, after losing both engines to a bird strike, Capt. Chesley
"Sully" Sullenberger (Tom Hanks, right) and co-pilot Jeff Skiles (Aaron Eckhart) contemplate
several equally unpleasant options, every one of which carries the risk of killing
hundreds of people.

Even when something has been done properly, with the desired outcome, we often wonder: Might things have concluded even better, with a different set of actions?

Far worse, of course, is when an optimal result is challenged by others who question our judgment. Armchair quarterbacks who insist that, really, it should have gone down this way.

Human nature. Quite infuriating.

At first blush, Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger would seem to be the last man on Earth to be confronted in such a manner; he is, after all, the hero who glided the disabled US Airways Flight 1549 Airbus A320 into a flat-out miraculous pancake landing on the Hudson River, on Jan. 15, 2009, saving the lives of all 155 passengers and crew. As any pilot can verify, water landings aren’t nearly as “soft” as a dive into a swimming pool; depending on speed and angle of impact, it’s more like slamming into a brick wall.

Who, then, could argue with Sully’s actions, given the results?

Ah, but that’s the hook behind director Clint Eastwood’s new film, which gains its dramatic tension from a crackerjack script by Todd Komarnicki, based on Sullenberger’s best-selling book, Highest Duty. Komarnicki and Eastwood manage a seemingly impossible feat, by injecting suspense into a narrative whose outcome we already know.

But that’s the point: Most folks don’t know the full story. Granted, everybody watched the amazing events on that January afternoon in 2009, many of us glued to TV sets. But while it’s true Sully saved all 155 people, he wasn’t able to save the plane itself ... and — sad to say — neither Airbus nor its insurance underwriters were going to take the loss of a $70 million aircraft lightly.

Ergo, the second-guessing, and this film’s suspense, as Sully — played with gravitas by Tom Hanks — and co-pilot Jeff Skiles (Aaron Eckhart) are grilled, after the fact, by National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigators who insist, armed with computer simulation test data, that the plane could have returned safely to the nearest La Guardia runway, or one at New Jersey’s Teterboro Airport.

And we can’t help wondering: Could it be true?

At which point, Komarnicki and Eastwood have us hooked.

American Sniper: Well-focused drama

American Sniper (2014) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated R, for strong and disturbing war violence, and frequent profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 1.16.15

What price a man’s soul?

Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper is the thoughtful study of Texas-born good ol’ boy Chris Kyle, who, sparked by a flash of patriotism, impulsively abandoned an amiably deadbeat lifestyle to train as a Navy SEAL. And not just any SEAL, as it turned out, but a deadly accurate sharpshooter eventually credited with 160 confirmed kills (out of 255 probables) during his service in the Iraqi war.

With Goat-Winston (Kyle Gallner, background) keeping an eye on the surrounding
buildings, Chris Kyle (Bradley Cooper) peers through the scope of his sniper rifle and
wonders what to do about the young woman and little boy who have just emerged from
a street-level doorway. Are they harmless ... or should they be taken out?

Eastwood — 84 years young, and still going strong — hasn’t helmed many straight biographies during his lengthy career; we can point to Bird and J. Edgar, along with White Hunter, Black Heart, the latter a thinly veiled account of director John Huston’s off-camera activities while making The African Queen.

Despite working with different scripters, each of these films focused on the emotional and spiritual toll exacted by a man’s career and lifestyle. It could be argued that Eastwood’s magnum opus, in this regard, is the wholly fictional Unforgiven, particularly when protagonist Bill Munny observes, “It’s a hell of a thing, killin’ a man. Take away all he’s got, and all he’s ever gonna have.”

Scripter Jason Hall emphasizes this notion throughout American Sniper, drawing heavily from the 2012 autobiography that Kyle wrote, assisted by Scott McEwen and Jim DeFelice. It’s a helluva story on numerous levels, starting with the fact that individuals really can make a massive difference, even within the military chain of command. Kyle couldn’t possibly know how many scores (hundreds?) of American soldiers he saved, during his career as — you have to love this eyebrow-lifting accolade — the most lethal sniper in U.S. military history.

And yet, on the surface, Bradley Cooper’s understated performance as Kyle eschews such celebrity; the man repeatedly insists that he abides by the simple ethos of God, country and family, and always in that order. On top of which, his responsibility as a childhood guardian to younger brother Jeff instilled the importance of looking after one’s own, and — later, on the battlefield — never leaving a man behind.

But Cooper’s work here is deceptive, as is the layering that Eastwood encourages from his star. At first blush, Kyle seems superficial and bland: determined solely to do a good job on behalf of his fellow soldiers, and seemingly unmoved by the consequences of his actions. But that’s a lie, of course, as becomes increasingly obvious during the course of a military career that runs from 1999 through 2009.

Jersey Boys: Ain't that a shame

Jersey Boys (2014) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated R, for profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.20.14

The good news:

Considering this play’s origins as a minimalist jukebox musical, director Clint Eastwood and scripters Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice have “opened it up” impressively for the big screen.

At the last possible second, the members of The Four Seasons — from left, Tommy
(Vincent Piazza), Bob (Erich Bergen), Frankie (John Lloyd Young) and Nick (Michael
Lomenda) — attempt to inspire their record producer by singing a new song, over the
phone, prior to a studio session that could make or break their careers.

It can’t hurt, of course, that Brickman and Elice were intimately acquainted with the material, having written the musical book for the 2005 Broadway hit that went home with four Tony Awards, including Best Musical.

The story charts the unlikely rise, success and lamentable self-destruction of the 1960s pop/rock group, The Four Seasons, perhaps better known these days as the combo fronted by Frankie Valli. Eastwood’s approach may be viewed with surprise by fans of the stage production; this cinematic adaptation of Jersey Boys is less a musical per se, and more a drama about musicians.

With the exception of a few numbers performed mostly intact for climactic emphasis, we’re granted little more than a flavor of the combo’s many hits: just enough to remind older viewers how many chart-toppers the group produced, while perhaps impressing younger viewers who don’t realize how far back some of these tunes actually go.

Additionally, Brickman and Elice have re-structured the narrative, essentially abandoning the more obvious elements of the “seasonal” presentation — spring, summer, fall and finally winter, each segment narrated by a different member of the combo — that mirrored the group’s genesis and eventual break-up. Little of that gimmick remains, aside from a stray reference to Vivaldi.

By the same token, although these individuals still break the fourth wall to tell this story by addressing us directly, their narrative input is intermixed here, rather than divided by person, according to season.

And, quite intriguingly, Valli — who wrapped up the story during the stage play’s winter segment — gets no narration here. We therefore never get a sense of his inner thoughts or motivations, as is the case with his three comrades; to a degree, then, our impression of Valli is shaped mostly by how others see him.

That’s an intriguing artistic choice, and it places a heavier burden on John Lloyd Young, who carries the bulk of the story’s emotional weight as Valli: a kid who comes into this world as Frankie Castelluccio, and seems destined to become just another mob-affiliated New Jersey punk.

Trouble with the Curve: Just about out of the park

Trouble with the Curve (2012) • View trailer
Four stars. Rating: PG-13, for occasional profanity and some sexual references
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.21.12

Even the most familiar material will become vibrant in the hands of seasoned pros.

Randy Brown’s impressive debut script for Trouble with the Curve turns this film into a quiet little charmer that focuses on both sports and the angst-laden trauma of a long-estranged father and daughter. Along the way, Brown also scores perceptive points about loyalty, workaholics, the ageist contempt of youth, and the soul-grinding aggravation of growing old.

Veteran baseball scout Gus (Clint Eastwood) is having trouble with his vision, but he
dares not acknowledge this, lest he lose his job. Enter Mickey (Amy Adams), his
long-estranged and only child, who reluctantly serves as her father's eyes while
attempting to re-kindle a bond once characterized by love and a shared devotion
to their favorite sport.

Star Clint Eastwood continues to be at the top of his game, delivering another riff on the “crusty ol’ coot” persona that has served him well in projects ranging from the light-hearted Space Cowboys to the far more serious Gran Torino. His work here slides between those two extremes; Gus Lobel has become too cranky to be actually likable — the ravages of old age merely amplifying his less pleasant qualities — but we sympathize with him nonetheless.

Gus is an old-style baseball scout, long employed by the Atlanta Braves, who loves hunkering in the bleachers and bathing in the magic of the sport’s “true, sweet sound.” He’ll never accept computer-driven stats as a replacement for his devotion to poring over newspapers and tip sheets, and then watching the players, in order to draw his own conclusions.

He is, in short, a dinosaur: an object of ridicule to number-crunching Braves associate scouting director Phillip Sanderson (Matthew Lillard), who insists that computers can do it faster and far more accurately. Pete Klein (John Goodman), chief of scouts and also Gus’ longtime best friend, is finding it harder and harder to defend the “old ways” to Braves General Manager Vince Freeman (Robert Patrick).

At this crucial moment, with Gus’ contract due to expire in three months, things get even worse as his eyesight begins to fail; an expanding circle in the center of his vision has grown blurry. A reluctant trip to his optometrist confirms the worst: glaucoma and macular degeneration.

The timing couldn’t be worse, because Gus’ next assignment involves a trip to North Carolina, to observe hot Swannanoa High School prospect Bo Gentry (Joe Massingill). The Braves really, really want this kid, and Sanderson is leading that charge; Gus, not to be rushed, wants to reach his own conclusions ... but that’ll be difficult, if he can’t see how Bo handles a pitch.

Enter Gus’ long-estranged daughter, Mickey (Amy Adams), a tightly wound associate at a high-powered Atlanta law firm, who has sacrificed everything to sprint along the fast track toward partnership. Mickey essentially has no life outside the office, but this is less a function of ambition, and more a self-defensive coping mechanism.

Once upon a time, long ago, Mickey and her father were inseparable, of necessity; her mother died when she was 6. Gus subsequently hauled his only child along on all his scouting assignments, and she grew to love the male-dominated atmosphere of swearing, joshing and drinking straight whisky. She also adores baseball to every possible degree, having reluctantly sublimated her talent for player stats in favor of torts and legal precedents.

J. Edgar: Too contrived an agenda

J. Edgar (2011) • View trailer for J. Edgar
2.5 stars. Rating: R, and rather stupidly, for brief profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.11.11


A fascinating film could be made about the life of notorious FBI autocrat J. Edgar Hoover.

J. Edgar, sadly, is not that film.

As Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer, background left) and J. Edgar Hoover
(Leonardo DiCaprio, background center) look on, FBI "wood expert" Arthur
Koehler (Stephen Root) carefully examines bits of the ladder used when the
Lindbergh baby was kidnapper. Koehler insists that he can match the ladder to
the plant where the wood was milled, and therefore confine the kidnapper's
movements to a specific geographic area.

Scripter Dustin Lance Black’s approach to this seminal 20th century figure is boring. Yawningly, crushingly boring.

I expected much better from Black, who won an Academy Award for his screenplay to 2008’s Milk. Unfortunately, in this case he focuses far too much on the clandestine affair between Hoover and longtime associate/companion Clyde Tolson.

Yes, we can lament the fact that Hoover and Tolson lived during unenlightened times, when “the love that dare not speak its name” was something to be concealed, particularly by men in power. And Black certainly intends that we consider the irony that one of the country’s most powerful men, a trader in dirty secrets himself, kept a whopper of his own.

But that would presuppose that Hoover is a man worthy of our sympathy, which isn’t the case. His intelligence, determination and maniacal patriotism notwithstanding, Hoover was — and is, as portrayed here by Leonardo DiCaprio — a venal, arrogant control freak, blackmailer and political kingpin every bit as corrupt as the headline-making gangsters his nascent Federal Bureau of Investigation helped bring down in the 1930s.

Hoover does not deserve our compassion, nor does he deserve the strawberry-lensed portrait that director Clint Eastwood grants him. And this Hoover certainly doesn’t merit the gentle keyboard theme that dominates the soundtrack: a lyrical eulogy that sounds much like the poignant piano ballads Eastwood composed for The Bridges of Madison County or Million Dollar Baby, but is completely out of place here.

The leaden pacing aside, this film’s other major problem is tone and focus: Both are completely wrong. Black suggests that the complicated relationship with Tolson was the single most important element of Hoover’s character, closely followed by his equally troubled relationship with a domineering mother (Judi Dench, at her waspish best) who’d rather have a “dead son than a daffodil.”

This is one view, and certainly a contributing factor to the elements that stoked Hoover’s growing paranoia, desperation and thirst for control. But Hoover obviously was far more than that, and Black utterly fails in his depiction of the man’s professional career: his genius for organization, his sharp political savvy, his quite accurate insistence that agents of law enforcement need investigative resources superior to the criminals they hope to apprehend.

What emerges is no more than a truncated, Readers Digest Condensed Books version of a very complex life: little more than surface gloss given minimal depth by DiCaprio’s performance.

Hereafter: Too much here, too little after

Hereafter (2010) • View trailer for Hereafter

Three stars (out of five) • Rated PG-13 for dramatic intensity and brief profanity

By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.21.10

Heartfelt attempts to deal with the afterlife, and with contacting the dead, are a risky proposition on the big screen.

Marcus (alternately twins George and Frankie McLaren) wants his
 mother (Lyndsey Marshal) to kick her drug and alcohol addictions,
but she simply isn't strong enough. With the threat of a foster
home just one social worker visit away, the boy becomes
increasingly frantic. 

Too much sentiment, no matter how well-intentioned, and the effort collapses: definitely the fate of 1998's adaptation of Richard Matheson's novel, What Dreams May Come, also undone by one of Robin Williams' too-earnest performances.

Douglas Trumbull's Brainstorm, back in 1983, foundered beneath too much gadget-laden techno-babble. 1980's thoughtful Resurrection, while not exactly an afterlife story, skirted the subject's edges with enough intelligence to raise intriguing questions.

Director Peter Jackson's recent adaptation of The Lovely Bones got lost in the needlessly ostentatious afterlife landscape inhabited by the dead young girl who tried to watch over her family from beyond; the resulting storyline, coupled with a truly unacceptable conclusion, got lost in the visual excess.

All this said, I've no doubt that such films can comfort viewers predisposed to believe in the power of devotion, as a means to retain a link to loved ones who've moved beyond our mortal realm. Patrons of a more cynical bent, alternatively, are likely to scoff and raise eyebrows.

Our world, these days, seems inhabited by far more of the latter.

Invictus: Fate's master

Invictus (2009) • View trailer for Invictus
Four stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, and quite needlessly, for fleeting profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.11.09
Buy DVD: Invictus• Buy Blu-Ray: Invictus [Blu-ray]

Although it eventually builds a full head of steam by the exciting third act, director Clint Eastwood's Invictus may be remembered more for its earlier, quieter moments:

• The pitch-dark 4 a.m. walks taken by newly elected South African president Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman), in the company of two bodyguards who fret about the ritualistic regularity of this practice, and how easily an ambush could be mounted;

When Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman, left) arranges to meet rugby team
captain Francois Pienaar (Matt Damon), their first conversation takes place
over afternoon tea: one of the greatest traditions brought to South Africa by
the British, in Mandela's view.

• The suspicion that characterizes interactions between the white and black members of Mandela's security team, and the oh-so-gradual thaw that eventually bonds these men through mutual respect;

• A shanty-town rugby session involving dirt-poor black children and the privileged members of the Springbok rugby team — fielding only one black player — when they're ordered to reach out to these young sports fans; and

• All interactions between Mandela and his feisty chief of staff, Brenda Mazibuko (Adjoa Andoh), who cannot understand why her boss devotes so much time and attention to something as "insignificant" as sports matches.

Ah, but that's the core of Anthony Peckham's carefully modulated screenplay — adapted from John Carlin's book, Playing the Enemy — which Eastwood has transformed into an uplifting underdog sports saga.

And one based on actual, history-making and life-changing events.

Invictus gets its name from the title of a poem by William Ernest Henley, which brought Mandela solace during the 27 years he spent in prison for his efforts to overthrow apartheid. Although the entire poem is deeply moving, its final two lines are key:

I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul.

The film begins on May 10, 1994, the day that Mandela takes office. He arrives to general chaos, as the previous administration's white staff members, having assumed their services no longer will be needed, pack hastily and try to leave inconspicuously. Mandela immediately puts a stop to such assumptions, and Freeman nails this short speech with just the right blend of surprise, sincerity and morale-building passion.

Gran Torino: Compelling ride

Gran Torino (2008) • View trailer for Gran Torino
Four stars (out of five). Rating: R, for violence and pervasive profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 1.9.09
Buy DVD: Gran Torino • Buy Blu-Ray: Gran Torino (+ BD-Live) [Blu-ray]


Loneliness can be painful beyond endurance.

In the case of Walt Kowalski, taciturn by nature and isolated by choice and circumstance, solitude has magnified his worst characteristics and all but destroyed his better nature. Gran Torino opens as Walt buries his beloved wife, obviously hating to put himself on public display during the church service and food-laden reception that demand his personal participation.

Hoping to "man up" his young neighbor, and help the teenage Theo (Bee Vang,
left) develop some swagger and self-confidence, Walt Kowalski (Clint Eastwood,
right) coaches the boy in the proper art of filthy male banter, using his own
good-natured prickly relationship with Martin (John Carroll Lynch) as an
example. The results prove quite amusing.

Dismayed by his adult sons and their families — and most particularly by a self-centered teenage granddaughter who lacks the respect to dress properly in church (a deftly sketched character whom we love to hate on sight!) — Walt's reflexive expression is a perpetual sneer of disgust, curled lip matching a hostile stare and simmering burn so volcanic that it could melt the polar ice cap.

In short, a perfect role to mark the return of Clint Eastwood as actor.

At first glance, we might imagine that Walt could be "Dirty" Harry Callahan at the tail end of a long and discouraging career, but that's far too superficial; Kowalski's demons are more complicated, and buried far deeper. As the film progresses, we gradually learn of Walt's Korean War service, and his inability to move past the awful memories of that kill-or-be-killed environment.

Initially, though, we're much too amused — and dismayed — by Walt's short temper and reflexive, contemptuous intolerance; the man slings ghastly racial slurs like most people use nouns and verbs. He proudly maintains his home and yard in a neighborhood once filled with people he knew as friends and fellow auto plant workers; now, most of the other dwellings have gone to seed, and many are inhabited by Hmong immigrants Walt lacks the perception or willingness to separate from the faceless Asians he fought in Korea.

In short, Walt has no use for anybody: not his estranged family, not the baby-faced priest determined to punch through Kowalski's reserve, and particularly not for the gangbanging Asian, Latino and African-American teens who, he feels, typify all the other unwanted people who have "invaded" his neighborhood.

But because this is Eastwood, who long ago perfected the ability to draw depths of emotion from stoic reserve, we see beyond the mask, and to the pain beneath. Although determined to maintain appearances, Walt is doing no more than marking time: sitting on his porch with a daily 12-pack of beer and his faithful dog, growling while the pooch remains silent, growing progressively more discouraged by the world around him ... and waiting to die.

Changeling: Factual horror story

Changeling (2008) • View trailer for Changeling
4.5 stars (out of five). Rating: R, for violence, profanity and profound dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.6.08
Buy DVD: Changeling • Buy Blu-Ray: Changeling [Blu-ray]

A single mother's 9-year-old son disappears; she frantically summons the police for help. Months pass, and finally a miracle: The boy has been found halfway across the country. But when the lad is brought back to California for the anticipated heartwarming reunion, the distraught mother knows immediately that a mistake has been made. This isn't her son.

Led to believe that the Los Angeles police have recovered her missing son,
Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie) is chagrined to discover that the boy clasped
by Capt. J.J. Jones (Jeffrey Donovan) isn't her son ... but her disappointment
turns to incredulous horror when Jones and the rest of his colleagues refuse to
admit their mistake, and insist that she must be wrong.

A tragic but understandable case of mistaken identity, right? The boy will be reprimanded for posing as somebody he isn't, and the police will resume their hunt for the woman's son.

Well ... no.

Not when the setting was 1928 Los Angeles, where the city police department under the rule of Chief James E. "Two Guns" Davis was as violent, corrupt and unrepentent as the Prohibition-era mobsters it had been designed to eradicate. What this meant to Christine Collins, after her son went missing, translated into a Kafka-esque nightmare that only grew worse — much, much worse — as days turned into weeks turned into months.

Director Clint Eastwood's Changeling, meticulously based on actual events by debut feature screenwriter J. Michael Straczynski, is at once fascinating and utterly beyond belief: a sequence of events that'd never fly in fiction, because they simply wouldn't pass the credulity test. No system of authority — certainly not in the United States, let alone the progressive state of California, less than 100 years ago — could be so unethical or so wantonly, viciously cruel.

No 20th century American woman could have been subjected to so heinous an ordeal.

No mother could have remained so resolute, in the face of such treatment.

No hero should have fallen into such obscurity, not even a century later.

Frankly, I don't understand why statues dedicated to Christine Collins aren't dotting the Los Angeles landscape, or why feminists haven't done a better job of heralding her (wholly unintentional) contribution to the cause of woman's rights. She deserves to be a teaching point in every contemporary history class.

(In the interest of maximizing your response to this film, you really should stop reading now, and save the rest until after you've seen the picture. I simply can't discuss it without citing relevant details that are best experienced without warning.)