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The Blood Work Movie Review
By Michael Connelly
Michael Connelly was given an advanced screening of the Blood Work Movie. Here is what he had to say on July 18, 2002:
Jane Davis: Have you seen the movie yet and what to do you think of it?
Michael Connelly: Yes, I finally saw it this week and I am very happy with it. I think it is a solid cop story and I think it
captured the character and spirit of the book.
JD: That makes it sound like there are big changes.
MC: Well, there are substantial changes to the plot dictated by location and money, etc. For
example, the book ends in Mexico and the movie never leaves Los Angeles. But these sort of things do not bother me at all. What's important to me is the journey of the character and that comes out fully intact and
done very well by Clint Eastwood.
JD: So Clint Eastwood being about 25 years older than the character in the book is not a problem?
MC: No, he is very good in it. Aside from the story and the
film itself, there is the additional aspect of the movie being a further meditation on the tough guy icon. Eastwood has been the tough guy cop in a lot of movies over the years. He is here, too, but he is weakened
by age and his heart. I really enjoyed seeing him in this role, sort of a softening of the Icon.
JD: Who else is good in it?
MC: I have no complaints about anyone. Angelica Huston, who plays
McCaleb's cardiologist, and Tina Lifford, who plays Sheriff's Detective Jaye Winston, are really good. I think Lifford kind of steals every scene she's in. She is very cool in it.
JD: Tina Lifford is
African-American and the character in the book is white. Eastwood seems to have really put together a diverse cast.
MC: He did and I think it was a great thing to do. When I wrote the book I purposely
wanted it to show the land diversity of the Los Angeles. I wanted it to be a travelogue through the windshield of the car McCaleb is driven around in. So the story takes the reader to all corners of L.A. County.
From the coast to the desert to the mountains. Eastwood did this in the film as well but carried the diversity further and into the casting. It is one of the things I like best about the film.
JD
: Without giving things away, what else do you like?
MC: I like all the character stuff. My ego dictates that I love the scenes that are taken in exacting detail and dialogue from the book. Those were
thrilling moments when I saw those scenes. But I also liked the stuff that was completely new and that came from screenwriter Brian Helgeland. For example, the movie opens with McCaleb as an FBI agent on a case. We
get the opportunity to see him as he was. In the book it begins with him two years into retirement. So that was pretty cool. There is an action sequence in which Eastwood and Lifford attempt to take down a suspect
that was not in the book. I think it comes off really well in the movie.
JD: Is there anything you would change about the movie.
MC: Very little. There are a couple of minor things but they
don't matter and I couldn't discuss them without giving things away.
JD: So will people who liked the book like the movie?
MC: I think they should. They are different species and I think need
to be viewed as such. But when I write, the character is the priority. When I read, it is the same. What I like most about this movie are the characters.
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