My Writings
Review - Hereafter
This is legend Clint Eastwood's 31st movie as a director and the 7th of those in which he does not make an appearance - his last acting role being Walt Kowalski in the fabulous Gran Torino. Of all these outings and his many acting roles (more than 50 since A Fistful of Dollars in 1964) it is rare indeed that you leave an Eastwood movie feeling disappointed. Alas, Hereafter is dull and tedious, with plotlines and characterisation that fail to engage, and a movie that is reduced to a a seemingly endless series of tedious scenes, which ultimately leads to audience disenfranchisment.
Eastwood's impressive directorial back catalogue includes movies on jazz, sport, racism, war, drama, and comedy : but not horror, and until now, not metaphysics.
Peter Morgan's screenplay does not need big budget special affects or 'A' list acting talent. It is a small budget screenplay that has been given the big budget treatment and has become thinly stretched.
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The plot has a series of characters who have some near-death experience and seek solace or understanding of the possibility of life after death - becoming dysfunctional in the absence of a satisfactory explanation of their glimpses of the hereafter. In Marie's case (Cecile de France) this follows resuscitation from a tsunami (an excellent opening scene). Secondly, a boy (Frankie McLaren) deeply mourns the loss of his twin brother. The third strand is Matt Damon's psychic, who can connect with the dead using touch, but is reluctant to, because of its causal affect. Damon has been handed a very tricky acting assignment and does not carry it off because the film has no emotional heart.
The last film to tackle this subject and do it justice was Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones, a far superior movie in every respect. Eastwood's next directorial outing sees him on more familiar ground, with a biopic on J. Edgar Hoover. When you consider that this is a big budget studio pic that was produced by Steven Spielberg, Hereafter is a major disappointment.
2/10 Dull trudgery
Review written by John Franklin : February 2011
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