# True Crime (1999)

### reviewed by
Christian Pyle

    True Crime (1999)

    a review by Christian Pyle

After "Unforgiven," Clint Eastwood declared that he would no longer star in the movies he directed. Since then, he's starred in only one movie he didn't direct ("In the Line of Fire" -- maybe working for Wolfgang Petersen made Eastwood rethink his plan) and directed only one without sticking his craggy puss in front of the camera ("Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil"). His latest effort, "True Crime," demonstrates the problem of having a director/producer/star: who's gonna tell him he's miscast?

Eastwood plays Steve Everett, a broken-down, womanizing, recovering alcoholic reporter who is one screw-up away from oblivion. When another reporter dies in a car crash, Everett is assigned her story: a "human interest sidebar" on an execution taking place at midnight. Despite warnings from his editors to keep his piece simple, Everett seizes on the story as his chance for redemption and quickly becomes convinced that Frank Beachum (Isaiah Washington), the man about to be lethally injected, is innocent.

He is innocent, of course. I write that without fear of spoiling the movie because the skeleton of this movie's plot is so rigidly formulaic that there's never really any doubt in the viewer's mind that Beachum is innocent. The ending is so overwrought in its last-minute rush to stop the execution that it comes off as cheesy. But hanging on the bones of this predictable plot is the unrealized potential for a much better film. Everett is an interesting character because he is difficult to like. He cheats on his wife with his editor's wife, he accidentally injures his daughter because he's in a rush to pursue a lead, he's a cynical burn-out with little respect for anyone's feelings. In his single-minded pursuit of the truth, he plows through people's lives like a runaway train. This role, a cousin to Paul Newman's character in "The Verdict," deserves an actor who could explore the complexities and contradictions of this deeply selfish man who fights so passionately to save Beachum's life not because of the value of that life but because proving his hunch was right will validate his worth as a reporter.

Eastwood is more a professional icon than an actor. His range is limited, and his choice of roles usually takes that into account. Any number of actors could have done more with the role of Everett than Eastwood did; my wife pointed out that the movie would have been served well if Eastwood and James Woods (who plays Everett's senior editor) had switched roles.

Another element in "True Crime" that cries out for further development is the questions raised about the death penalty and about biases in the criminal justice system. Beachum is a poor black man quickly convicted on the word of two middle-class white witnesses. Before Everett bursts in like Henry Fonda in "Twelve Angry Men" and exposes the rush to judgement, no one -- not even Beachum's lawyer -- questions the inconsistencies in the case. Yet when one character brings up the possibility of racial bias in Beachum's conviction, Everett dismisses it, and the audience is inclined to follow his lead.

One thing True Crime does well is to attack the attitudes of the press. Everett is not supposed to seek the truth; he is only supposed to present a moving "sidebar" for the morning paper. Local TV reporters discuss the method of execution with the same blithe detachment they have talking about the weather. In brief moments like these, Eastwood offers devastating satire about an institution that is content to report rather than investigate.

The case includes several familiar faces. Woods is very funny, and his chemistry with Eastwood is terrific. Michael Jeter is excellent as the state's mousy star witness. Denis Leary stretches his acting wings a bit. He plays Bob, the news editor who assigns Everett to write the sidebar to promote a liberal point-of-view yet cares little about whether Beachum is actually guilty. Bob is distinctly different from Leary's stand-up persona, and Leary gets some challenging emotional scenes (it's his wife that Everett is boinking). But his performance comes off bland. Another comedian who flops at drama in True Crime is Michael McKean; he plays a slimy prison chaplain who (like everyone else in the movie) wants to use Beachum to promote a personal agenda, but he overplays the part so broadly that he seems to think he's in a comedy.

Bit of trivia: Everett's daughter is played by Eastwood's real-life daughter Francesca Fisher-Eastwood. Francesca's mother, Frances Fisher of Unforgiven and Titanic, also has a cameo.

All things considered, True Crime is an uneven film that could have been worthwhile if Eastwood had recognized its undeveloped potential.

    Grade: C

    © 1999 Christian L. Pyle

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