Blood Work (2002)

Based on the novel of the same name by Michael Connelly, Blood Work is essentially Clint Eastwood's rough equivalent to the previous years Jack Nicholson film The Pledge. Instead of a cop, who on the day before his retirement promises a grieving mother he would find the man who killed her daughter, it's an FBI profiler, forced to retire do to a heart condition, who promises the sister of the woman whose heart he received as a transplant, that he would find the man who killed her. Both films involve the protagonist getting romantically involved with a much younger woman who is a raising a young child on her own. The cast here are basically unknowns, with a few notable exceptions (Eastwood, Jeff Daniels, and Anjelica Huston, the latter in a smallish part) which I think really helps the film seem more 'real'. The central mystery is fairly easy to figure out, I did about half way through, but its well acted, enjoyable, more a procedural mystery then thriller. A logical extension on Eastwood's earlier work, maturely handled. I seemed to have liked it better then most critics. ***1/2