MartinHafer "True Crime" is an exciting film to watch...and I am glad I saw it. And, the film brings up some really important reasons why the death penalty, at least in some cases, is a crazy punishment because you cannot undo it once it's done.Clint Eastwood (who is actually too old for this role) plays Steve, a reporter for an Oakland newspaper. He's a mess...a womanizer, a drunk and a jerk. But when he's given a last moment assignment to interview a man about to be executed, something odd happens to Steve...he begins to give a darn about something. And, the more he digs the more the case looks shaky...built upon only eyewitness testimony and circumstantial evidence.This is an uneven film. The portions with Eastwood were okay but not much more. Where the movie really, really shined was in portraying the man on death row and his family...that was marvelously made and Eastwood, in this case, was a better director than actor and got some marvelous performances out of everyone. Worth seeing but uneven and, when you think about it, hard to believe. Plus, that homeless guy...why was he in the film and who thought having him sexually harass ladies was funny or worth including in the story?!

JoeB131 Clint Eastwood has always been great at playing anti-Heroes, but this time, he went full out, playing a recovering alcoholic reporter who uses the case of a death row inmate to refurbish his career.You just don't like his character in this movie. He's a horrible husband, father and so on. He doesn't care about justice, he just cares about winning a Pulitzer. There's really nothing admirable about his character at all.Still, Clint does a good job here, and he has a great supporting cast, such as Isaiah Washington as the convict he is trying to save, or James Wood as his cynical editor. Also look for Lucy Liu as a store clerk before anyone knew who she was.I also kind of get the feeling that this role was written for a younger actor. One you could believe plausibly as the father of a six year old. The movie drags in places and is quite uncomfortable to watch in others. (Again, just about any scene with the aforementioned six year old in them.)

secondtake True Crime (1999)This is a pretty good story in some ways, and it's filmed with solid professional force. There are some good side characters, a strong central them, and a great clock-is-ticking scenario, as is often the case with death row dramas. It'll make you sympathize correctly, and hope to the end for a miracle. For the result, you'll have to watch it. The title, True Crime, has more nuance than the movie, however. If the implication is that the system is criminal, or the idea of the death penalty, this isn't really worked with. It's simply played up in the expected (very expected) ways. Still, the facts follow with good logic, and if you can ignore the canned relationship problems, and a tossed-in cute daughter who serves as a comic and sentimental distraction, the basic plot of a reporter with a nose for injustice works.But I'm trying to avoid saying this is a mediocre and sometimes aggravating film. It is overly calculated to be a last minute death row cliff hanger. And if you've seen Clint Eastwood movies in general, you'll see some familiar threads, like the old man hitting on young women who seem to enjoy it (and this is the character they enjoy, not the movie star, who probably would have luck with women like this), with no sense of moving the plot forward. So it ends up being an action adventure male fantasy movie, where the down-on-his-luck cop/reporter/whatever (in this case a reporter) has to come to the aid of the otherwise hapless world. This is enough sometimes, but I've been there too many times before, and often with Eastwood at the helm (he directed, too), and I'm tired of it.

dunmore_ego TRUE CRIME has the potential to be a powerful thought experiment, exploring the psychology behind the perception of what True Crime truly is. Aside from implicit racism, no real issues are broached in this dialog-driven Clint Eastwood actioner. From an Andrew Klaven novel, TRUE CRIME is merely the tale of a wrongly-convicted murderer on death row, Frank Beechum (played stolidly by Isaiah Washington) and curmudgeon reporter, Steve Everett's (Eastwood) 11th-hour hunt for the truth to grant his stay of execution.The question of what criteria constitutes True Crime is never raised. The plot involves a young black man robbing a grocery store and accidentally killing the pregnant female clerk, while Beechum happens to be in the store. Beechum is convicted for the crime on the tried-and-true Whitey charge of "Being Black And Nearby." To really bite at the meat of the movie's title, we would be exploring who is more of a criminal: the robber-murderer, or the congressperson whose mismanagement of social policy created the necessity for the robber to turn to crime for survival in the first place.In other words, is the bottom rung of society to blame for their survival instincts, when those instincts are only brought into prominence because white-collar criminals create a disparity of wealth in society to begin with? Well, slap a little racism in there - keep the deep thinkers at bay. For a second.There are a few too-convenient plot points and pulp coincidences, and we shudder to think how a less talented director might have made a mush of them. Only Eastwood directing Eastwood can get away with contrivances like Everett knowing the governor personally and later calling in a favor in the dead of night when the clock is ticking down; only Eastwood directing Eastwood can make sexagenarian Everett a convincing skirt-chaser, involved with a fellow reporter's (Denis Leary) wife. Only Eastwood directing Eastwood, Etc.For the simple story it is, TRUE CRIME hits its marks and pays off: dialog is snappy, especially the uber-masculine repartee between Eastwood, James Woods (as his editor) and Denis Leary; the principals give nuanced performances - Lisa Gay Hamilton as Washington's loyal wife, Diane Verona as Everett's estranged wife, Michael Jeter as a slimy eyewitness; Bernard Hill as a sympathetic warden and Michael McKean as a boneheaded priest. Eastwood's real-life daughter, Francesca Fisher-Eastwood (from ex-wife Frances Fisher), plays his cute little daughter.--Review by Poffy The Cucumber.