| Blood Work | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Clint Eastwood |
| Screenplay by | Brian Helgeland |
| Based on | Blood Work byMichael Connelly |
| Produced by | Clint Eastwood |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Tom Stern |
| Edited by | Joel Cox |
| Music by | Lennie Niehaus |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 110 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $50 million[1] |
| Box office | $31.8 million[2] |
Blood Work is a 2002 Americanmysterythriller film starring, produced, and directed byClint Eastwood. It co-starsJeff Daniels,Wanda De Jesús, andAnjelica Huston. The story is an adaptation of the 1998novel of the same name byMichael Connelly.
Eastwood won the Future Film Festival Digital Award at theVenice Film Festival for his work on the film.[3]
FBI Special Agent Terry McCaleb, a veterancriminal profiler, leads a joint FBI-LAPD task force to capture the "Code Killer", a serial murderer who leaves taunting messages for McCaleb. While addressing reporters at the latest crime scene, McCaleb sees what he believes to be the killer in the crowd and pursues him only to suffer a near-fatalheart attack.
Two years later, the now retired McCaleb lives out of his fishing boat,Following Sea, on theLong Beach bay, having received a heart transplant. He is approached by waitress Graciella Rivers; her sister, Gloria, was murdered during a robbery and she asks him to solve the case. He discovers that the heart transplanted into him was Gloria's. Struggling withsurvivor's guilt, McCaleb agrees to help her.
Against the advice of his physician, McCaleb conducts an illegal investigation into Gloria's death, aided by hisalcoholic neighbor Jasper "Buddy" Noone and a former colleague,LASD Detective Jaye Winston. He discovers that the killer committed a previous murder and identifies two potential suspects, both of whom wind up dead. Eventually, he realizes that the Code Killer is responsible, and pieces together that he and Noone are one and the same. Buddy confesses that he killed Gloria to ensure that McCaleb would be saved.
Declaring his intention to "resume the game" between them, Buddy reveals that he has kidnapped Graciella and her nephew, Gloria's son Raymond. McCaleb forces him to reveal that they are trapped on a wreckedCoast Guard cutter in the bay. He rescues them and shoots Buddy before Graciella holds his head underwater to get revenge for her sister. With his past behind him, McCaleb starts a relationship with Graciella and takes her and Raymond out on his boat.
Blood Work was filmed in spring 2002 in Los Angeles andLong Beach, California, in 38 days.[1]
Blood Work received mixed reviews.Rotten Tomatoes shows a score of 51%, calling it "a routine, but competently made thriller marred by lethargic pacing."[4]Metacritic, which uses aweighted average, assigned the film a score of 64 out of 100, based on 34 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[5]
A. O. Scott ofThe New York Times wrote while it was similar to many Eastwood films, "there is something comforting in seeing this old warhorse trot gamely out of the gate for yet another run on familiar turf."[6]
The film was a box office disappointment, grossing $31.8 million worldwide on a budget of $50 million.[7]
