Blood Work (2002)

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Thriller	Main Menu Audio Listing-Cast & Crew Featurette-Making Blood Work Featurette-A Conversation in Spanish with C Eastwood, W De Jesu, et al Teaser Trailer Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	2002
Running Time	105:55
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (58:56)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4,5	Directed By	Clint Eastwood
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Clint Eastwood Jeff Daniels Wanda De Jesus Tina Lifford Paul Rodriguez Dylan Walsh Mason Lucero Anjelica Huston
Case	?
RPI	$39.95	Music	Lennie Niehaus

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English French Italian German Spanish Arabic Dutch English for the Hearing Impaired Italian for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Clint Eastwood is getting older, but he is far from past it. This is a good film, with an unusual setup. It also has an impressive cast.

    FBI agent Terry McCaleb (Clint Eastwood) gets serial killer cases. He's working on the Code Killer case, who leaves a series of numbers as a message at every murder site. As he's leaving the site of the latest homicide he sees a possible suspect and gives chase. The chase goes on for a distance, putting McCaleb under stress — he has a heart attack, but manages to put a bullet into the suspect before he collapses.

    A couple of years later, McCaleb is retired, and recovering from a heart transplant. His doctor, Bonnie Fox (Anjelica Huston), is impressed with the progress he's making. He heads home to his boat (he lives on it), stopping only to exchange words with his neighbour, Buddy (Jeff Daniels), who alerts him to the presence on his boat of a visitor. She's Graciella Rivers (Wanda de Jesús), who wants him to investigate a murder. He refuses, explaining that he's retired. She gets his attention, though, by explaining that the murder victim was the source of the new heart in his chest. (Now that's a new hook!) Understandably, McCaleb agrees to look into the case, which seems very simple at first...

    McCaleb is not Dirty Harry (his gun is a simple .38 revolver). He's not like the heroes Clint Eastwood has played in the past. He's prevented from being too physical by the fact that he's only two months into his recovery from the heart transplant. But he is a thinker.

    I'm not going to tell you anything more — there are some twists that could easily be spoiled. I won't be surprised if you work things out before the end, but it's still well worth watching how things resolve.

Video

    This transfer is presented at an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, 16x9 enhanced. That's the original theatrical aspect ratio (No surprise! It's Clint Eastwood's favourite).

    The image is sharp and clear, which we should expect, given how recently this film was made. There's excellent shadow detail, no film grain, and no trace of low-level noise.

    Colour is well-rendered, but there aren't too many vivid colours — the production design uses mostly drab colours. There are no colour-related artefacts.

    There are no film artefacts to be seen.

    There is more than a little aliasing, but it is mild, and not distracting; there's mild dot crawl on a lot of diagonal lines. There's no significant moire, and no noticeable MPEG artefacts. This is quite a clean transfer.

    There are subtitles in seven languages, including English, and hearing impaired captions in both English and Italian. I watched the English captions: they are easy to read, well-timed to the dialogue, and no more inaccurate than usual (some abbreviation, some rephrasing to shorten).

    The disc is single-sided, RSDL. The layer change is at 58:56. It's nicely placed at a scene change, and I didn't spot it first time through. I think the visibility of this layer change will depend on your player. It's a good one.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The soundtrack is provided in English, French, and Italian. All of the soundtracks are Dolby Digital 5.1. I only listened to the English track.

    The dialogue is mostly clear, but a few lines are a little bit mumbled, although still comprehensible. There are no audio sync issues.

    Lennie Niehaus provides the score, as on so many Clint Eastwood films. This is a nicely restrained score, well suited to the film, leaving plenty of film without music to increase tension.

    The surrounds are used fairly subtly, but effectively — there are some elegant directional sound cues and ambience at times. The subwoofer doesn't have a lot to do, but when it's required, it does its job nicely.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    There are only a few extras, but they are reasonable.

Menu

    The menus are simple, with music.

Cast and Crew

    This is disappointing — nothing more than a one-page list of principal actors, and another showing the author of the original book, the author of the screenplay, and the producer and director (a certain Mr Eastwood...).

Featurette—Making Blood Work (18:10)

    This is a decent making of, providing interviews with most of the people involved. There's less of the profuse mutual admiration that usually befouls these featurettes, but there are some major spoilers — definitely don't watch this until after you've seen the film.

Featurette—a conversation in Spanish (14:21)

    In some ways a second making of, but this time in Spanish. Actually, all the film excerpts are in English, and so is some of the conversation, but the lengthy pieces from Wanda de Jesús and Paul Rodriguez are in Spanish. They talk about the gradually increasing number of Hispanic actors, and the better quality of parts they are getting.

Teaser Trailer (0:54)

    A decent, if unremarkable, teaser.

Theatrical Trailer (1:33)

    A good trailer, but nothing special — has enough in the way of spoilers that you shouldn't watch it before the film.

    There is virtually no difference between the Region 1 disc and this Region 4. The Region 1 gets four filmographies connected to the cast and crew list, but that's the only difference in the extras. The R1 offers fewer languages for both soundtrack and subtitles. Another case where you could easily be happy with either disc.

    A good movie from a master filmmaker, on an excellent disc.

    The video quality is excellent, even with minor aliasing.

    The audio quality is excellent, with nicely judged use of surrounds.

    The extras are a bit meagre, but they are OK.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall