during the making of his film-biography of jazz musician charlie parker , bird , clint eastwood said that america has produced only two original artforms . western movies and jazz . everyone knew that clint had and would continue to make his mark on the former ( dirty harry , unforgiven ) , and with bird , he unforgettably touched upon the latter . after reflecting upon the two original american artforms , what was eastwood to do ? after unforgiven , the quality of his work decreased bit by bit as he decided not to take as many risks as he once did . his latest , true crime , doesn't offer much in the way of originality , but it still provides the viewer with a solid , satisfying drama . true crime tells the story of steve everett ( eastwood ) , a journalist for the oakland tribune . ev , as he is known to his friends , is an unscrupulous , womanizing former drunkard who's colleague ( mary mccormack ) is killed in a car crash just moments after having a drink with him . in the aftermath , ev is told by his editor ( denis leary ) , with whose wife he is sleeping , that he must take his colleague's place covering the story of a convicted murderer named frank beachum ( isaiah wasington ) , who is set to be executed that night . ev's boss ( james woods ) , with whose wife he also claims to be sleeping , explains to him that this is merely a human interest story about life before execution . but ev finds something fishy in this case in which beachum was convicted of shooting a pregnant woman working a cash register in a small market . after a meeting with beachum and a key witness in the trial , ev is convinced that beachum did not commit the murder . in the hours leading up to beachum's planned execution , ev ends up losing his job and his marriage , but never his composure . for most of its 2-plus hour running time , true crime is a cut above the competition . it keeps the viewer engrossed , wanting to know every detail about what's going on . but the last 15 minutes of the film keep it from being the riveting thriller it wants to be . the ending of true crime is totally unconvincing , and makes you think that maybe this isn't the leisurely paced drama you were watching for the past two hours . the film's ending happens to quickly to digest , and makes you leave the theater unable to realize what point the film was trying to make . maybe part of the problem was the fact that true crime used three screenwriters to adapt andrew klavan's novel , and each writer seems to want to take the film on a different trip . eastwood uses clever restraint throughout most of the film , but the ending seems to be too much to handle . but true crime is a film definitely worth seeing , especially for a great perfromance by isaiah washington , as an accused man approaching death . i'm glad to see that clint has decided to give his own american touch to a conventional storyline , because leaving this film in the hands of someone else would be a true crime . review by akiva gottlieb , the teenage movie critic <a href= " mailto : akiva@excite . com " >akiva@excite . com</a> <a href= " http : //www . angelfire . com/mo/film " >http : //www . angelfire . com/mo/film</a> <hr>get your free , private email at <a href= " http : //mail . excite . com/ " >http : //mail . excite . com/</a> 
