First published on American Madness on 19 December 2008.
Republished here with minor editorial adjustments that do not affect content.
The last few years have brought Clint Eastwood a great deal of critical success as a director. He’s recently had a four film streak beginning with Mystic River in 2003 that have brought three Best Picture Oscar nods, including a winner in Million Dollar Baby, and renewed praise for the aging movie star. This year Eastwood has given us another two films, each of which has the scent of awards season contenders, but ultimately fail to deliver on the promise of greatness that we may have unfairly come to expect from him.
Changeling, which opened in October, rides high mostly on the backs of the performances of Angelina Jolie and a refreshingly understated John Malkovich. Unfortunately the film, which tells the true story of a Los Angeles woman whose young son went missing in 1929, veers off into the wilderness of courtroom drama. It wears out its welcome after about ninety minutes of what could have been a taut drama, but instead becomes an outsized spectacle.
