A very good movie

I already saw this movie but since it was a while back, I was quite eager to check it out. Well, back in those days, Clint Eastwood’s directing career was going through a rather weak stage which started at the end of the 90’s with the underwhelming ‘Absolute Power’ and, after a long string of disappointing movies, Eastwood made a major come-back with this flick. Eventually, it seems that this movie was eclipsed by the success of ‘Million Dollar Baby’ which would be released a year later but, personally, I think it easily belongs to Clint Eastwood’s best directing efforts. It’s interesting that, while I was rewatching the damned thing, I noticed, that even if the story was decent, it was in fact nothing really amazing though. Eventually, what made this movie really fascinating was the attention they gave on the characters who were are all flawed and complex. Eventually, there were so many scenes during which I thought the characters’ actions and feelings were rather dubious and, yet, each time, I could understand why they would make such choices with sometimes some really dramatic consequences. On top of that, you had here a great director at the top of his game with a very strong cast (Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon, Tim Robbins, Laurence Fishburne, Marcia Gay Harden, Laura Linney, Emmy Rossum). Furthermore, it was really gritty and Eastwood definitely didn’t sugar-coat the damned thing. In fact, during the opening scene, my wife was slightly pissed off because it seemed to be too hardcore for her taste (she eventually really enjoyed this movie though). Many people actually consider this movie as Eastwood’s last great masterpiece and they might actually be right. Anyway, to conclude, it is a very strong drama and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in Clint Eastwood’s work.