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True Crime Reviews
Wonderful movie by Eastwood. A gripping story that really makes you think about the death penalty. One of his best films.
I felt like the characters in this movie could feel the happiness and difficulties that they faced in real life.
Good Eastwood. A little bit old for womanizing, but hey.
An overly long Clint Eastwood film about a news reporter seeking to find a man innocent before he is sentence to death for a crime he didn't commit.
Surprisingly straightforward, though 'True Crime' is still very good. The lead performance of Clint Eastwood is enjoyable and he is supported ably by Isaiah Washington. There are a number of recognisable faces behind those two, namely Denis Leary, Michael McKean, James Woods and Bernard Hill; Lucy Liu even has a minor role. I did think we were in for a biggest twist, but it kinda just goes the wall you - or, at least, I - expected. That's not actually a bad thing, as what is produced is entertaining and kept me interested throughout - it just feels like it is setting something different up at one or two points. I will say, if I had anything close to a negative it would be the humour - which sometimes works, but sometimes doesn't; no biggie, though.
The expressions "bad movie", "good movie" are too subjective and very ambiguous: what for one person is the best, for another may be the worst. For example: for me "Batman Beggins" is one of the best superhero movies, while for my father it was total rubbish, who is right? there is the ambiguous. Eastwood has experience as a director, he has proven it. What happened here? I liked the movie a lot, it has the elements to shape a good story, a good drama with realistic overtones. It has a good development of a criminal investigation. A problem could be, the character that Eastwood plays, repeating the same formula that has given him success several times: playing the character of the incredulous man, of a dysfunctional family, almost atheist who (spoiler) in the end reaches redemption by saving someone, in this case, saving the life of a black man, accused of femicide and sentenced to death. How? With a "simple" phone call to the governor. The ending, nice, but more worthy of a cheesy fairy tale. How many people in real life have protested against capital punishment, trying to prevent the death of countless convicts without achieving their goal? If the accused are really "good" or "bad", I do not know, nor is it up to me to define it. But, in their wonderful country, infamous serial killers have been able to save themselves from that punishment, while others, for much less, have ended their lives on the gallows.
A very bad film, directed by Clint Eastwood, who plays Steve Everett a journalist who thinks that a convicted murderer is an innocent and to prove his innocence, he has to race against time before his execution. An old plot, Clint Eastwood was a miscast. Acting was bad, no proper screenplay and 2hr 7mins 24secs waste of my time. I would rather do something useful than watching this. But Isaiah Washington's performance as Frank Beechum was outstanding.
A decent movie, but Clint Eastwood was way too old for the role. WAY too old. On a positive note, Isaiah Washington delivered a very convincing and powerful performance as Frank Beechum.
It is nothing special but interesting enough for a watch,
An under-rated surprise of a movie! I didn't realized how great of a movie this was, until I watched it again. The bantering was hilarious. Eastwood, Leary & Woods were just about perfect in this Classic gem! A+
Clint Eastwood has been in the movie business for so long, he knows every cliche and overused plot in cinematic history. I think when he decided to make this film, in spite of the fact that the "innocent prisoner on execution day" story has been done many times before, he said, "I'll put the Eastwood touch on it, and it will work." Well, it didn't work at the box office. It lost a lot of money, with a $55 million budget and a worldwide gross of about $16 million. I'm not sure why. Yeah, it's derivative, but Eastwood's personal touch saves it. There are many subtle, meaningful elements in this movie. The condemned man's little girl is drawing him a picture while visiting him on his last day, and she loses her green crayon. The prison guards find it and bring it to her. She wants to draw a "green pasture," a very hip reference to the 1936 all-black film about stories from the Bible. Biblical themes recur throughout. "An eye for an eye" is repeated a few times, both by characters and on protest posters. The prison clergyman (Michael McKean) is shameful, falsely claiming that the condemned man gave him a confession just to make to make himself look good. And the condemned man has found the Lord, which is a prison cliche, but it does make us sit back and reconsider his guilt or innocence. The scenes with newspaper reporter Steve Everett (Eastwood) and his managing editor Alan Mann (James Woods) are worth the price of admission. Wood is hyperactive, over-the-top, and totally engaging. The other actors are uniformly excellent, especially Isaiah Washington as the condemned man Frank Beechum. Eastwood's Everett is not a nice guy. He's a drunk (he's been sober for two months, but he breaks down and gets drunk due to all the stress he's under); he's a shameless womanizer, sleeping with his city editor's wife and anyone else who will accommodate him; and he neglects his own wife and kid. But as the story proceeds and he becomes convinced that the accused man is innocent, he starts to realize that doing the right thing for once in his life may save him from self-destruction. He does everything in his power, including driving drunk at top speed to the governor's house just minutes before the execution, to elicit justice. Plausible? Believable? Of course not. Cliched? No doubt. But hang in there. One thing about Eastwood as a director, and as an actor: He never fails to engage us and draw us into the story. My only criticism is that the resolution is a bit rushed. But the final scene makes up for it. Ignore the naysayers and watch this one. You won't be disappointed.
Bit of a joke film but I managed to watch it.
As with many of Eastwood's films, this on also starts slowly and focuses on character development. However, stay with it. The story builds momentum through a 24 hours chase for the truth until the riveting climax at two minutes past midnight. I'm not a left-wing crusader (neither is Eastwood) but knowing that over 100 inmates sentenced to death were later exonerated by DNA evidence, this "unrealistic" drama becomes very plausible. An excellent film!
An overlooked legal thriller in my eyes. While it may be paced too slowly for some I enjoy True Crime for tackling hard issues such as the flaws in our justice system.
While not for everyone, True Crime has an engaging narrative about our flawed justice system, great acting, and a touching yet tragic conclusion.
Definitely not one of Clint Eastwood's best directorial efforts. The story itself makes very little sense. The movie asks us to believe that a reporter, assigned the story the day of an execution, in a case no one had substantial doubts about, can come in and save an innocent man. I suppose stranger things have happened in real life, but this story just isn't credible. Perhaps realizing this, there is a scene where Steve Everett (Eastwood) argues with his editor (James Woods) dismissing the judicial processes that lead to the conviction and death sentence Frank Beachum (Isaiah Washington). And that's where the argument ends. How do we know Beachum had a third-rate lawyer or that the appeals courts had nothing to work with? We don't. The only lawyer we see on Beachum's case seems reasonably adequate and diligent. We don't know whether the defense was told about the third person, which point to some incompetence on the defense attorney's part. But what about the press itself? In cases like this, you would have Beachum's defenders in the press arguing his innocence, already pointing out the witness who "saw" Beachum with a gun could not possibly have seen what he said he saw--using crime scene photos to back them up. In other words, this would be a case where Beachum's innocence should have been a topic for debate all along. Instead, it's Everett's nose for a story that's supposed to make us believe in Beachum's innocence. The story would have been more credible if Beachum's case was being so debated and all Everett did was find the real killer. But that would change the story entirely, and this was supposed to be a suspense thriller.