A real crime
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | A real crime |
| Original title | True crime |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1999 |
| length | 122 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Clint Eastwood |
| script |
Larry Gross , Paul Brickman , Stephen Schiff |
| production |
Richard D. Zanuck , Lili Fini Zanuck , Clint Eastwood |
| music | Lennie Niehaus |
| camera | Jack N. Green |
| cut | Joel Cox |
| occupation | |
| |
A true crime (Original title: True Crime ) is an American feature film from 1999. Directed by Clint Eastwood ; the film is based on a novel by Andrew Klavan . The main roles were played by Clint Eastwood and Isaiah Washington .
action
Black mechanic Frank Beechum is in San Quentin State Prison , sentenced to death for the murder of cashier Amy Wilson. It is the day before his scheduled execution.
Michelle Ziegler, a reporter for the local newspaper, The Oakland Tribune , was assigned to interview Beechum. However, she was killed in a car accident the night before, and so the ex-drinker Steve Everett was commissioned by the editorial team to conduct this interview. As soon as he is being trained by an editorial assistant about Beechum's case, his keen sense for stories where something is wrong is stirred.
Before he can look into the matter even more closely, Everett has to go to the zoo with his four-year-old daughter before his little time, because he had already promised her that. In order to keep his promise, but to lose as little time as possible, he packs her in a stroller and runs her past the animals at a run. An accident happens and the little one sustains a few grazes. When he later shows up with his daughter at the front door of his wife Barbara with a plaster on her face, she is horrified and slams the door in front of him. He then resumes his research.
Everett's suspicions are corroborated in a personal interview with Beechum in prison, and Everett begins his own investigation. His editor-in-chief Alan Mann is not very enthusiastic about it and actually only wanted a superficial story about the last hours of a convict.
Everett speaks again to the witnesses from that time and rummages through Michelle Ziegler's files, who had been equally critical of the case. Everett finds out that a testimony cannot be truthful. He also identifies another person present at the time of the murder, Warren Russel. He visits his family in their small rented apartment, but only finds the grandmother of the witness, who has since passed away.
As the time to execution is running out, Everett investigates all leads. He even messes with prosecutor Nussbaum. Nothing works and Beechum's life seems lost. Preparations for the execution are already in full swing and Beechum says goodbye to his family. Everett goes to his local pub and gets drunk.
Then Everett accidentally discovers the key to solving the case: In a photo of the murdered cashier, he notices the medallion on her neck that Warren Russell's grandmother had worn when he visited her shortly before. After a breakneck chase with the police (which also drove past the scene of his former colleague Ziegler's accident), he managed at the last moment to stop the three-stage injection that had already started at the very last moment .
Later on, Everett and Beechum are seen accidentally bumping into each other while shopping for Christmas; they just nod knowingly and go their own way.
Reviews
“After a leisurely and clumsily staged beginning, the story only really gets going after a wonderful argument between Eastwood and James Woods, who - brilliantly as always - is playing Eastwood's boss. Despite some inconsistencies in the story, the whole thing offers good cinema entertainment. "
"More interested in a melancholy self-portrayal than in an argumentative confrontation with the death penalty, Clint Eastwood leaves the sluggish plot all too much in the undecided area between crime thriller, moral marriage story and social commentary."
Sight & Sound praised Isaiah Washington's acting skills in a “usual” thriller in June 1999 and found Eastwood's directing to be somewhat wandering or undisciplined enough in narrative terms.
“The end […] is a vision, a beautiful dream of things as they should have been. Nevertheless, we remain a bit unsatisfied at the end, as it sometimes is when a shrewd director - Michael Mann can do it too or Sean Penn - presents the happy ending so euphorically that we get an idea - a hunch - he could mean the exact opposite to have."
"For the most part, this is a familiar, intelligent Eastwood film, a thriller that is unusually - and poignantly - attentive to human emotions."
“Except that [… Gail Beechum] has lost her green crayon - which would symbolically represent happiness and peace for dad. She yells, the music swells and I see the people in charge at Warner Bros. in front of me how they got into a dispute in their "screening room". "
“Eastwood […], approaching 70, flirts with women in their early twenties. [...] my " Suspension of Disbelief " collapsed well before the end. "
"A downright awful screenplay (" a downright awful screenplay ")."
Desson Howe found in the Washington Post on March 19, 1999 that it was fun to look at icon Eastwood, that the deus-ex-machina ending was downright "laughable". In the parallel montage of the chase and execution in the finale, only the orangutan "Clyde" from The Man from San Fernando is missing , wrote Peter Rainer in New York in 1999 . David Edelstein of Slate was reminded by this sequence of The Birth of a Nation (1915) by D. W. Griffith. Douglas Cruickshank called True Crime a "dead film walking" on Salon.com .
Awards
- Black Reel Award (2000): A nomination for Best Supporting Actress (LisaGay Hamilton)
- Image Award (2000): A nomination for the extraordinary actress (LisaGay Hamilton)
- Young Artist Award (2000): 2 nominations for the best young actress (Penny Bae Bridges and Francesca Eastwood )
Web links
- True Crime in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- True Crime at Rotten Tomatoes (English)
- True Crime at Metacritic (English)
- A real crime in the online film database
- The official website for the film (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ A real crime. In: Prisma.de . Prisma-Verlag GmbH & Co. KG, accessed on November 27, 2008 .
- ↑ A real crime. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
- ↑ John Wrathall: True Crime. In: BFI Sight & Sound . June 1999, archived from the original on June 2, 2008 ; accessed on May 5, 2008 (English): "As director, Eastwood's attention seems to wander from scene to scene: if a scene doesn't grab him, he just knocks it out and moves on to the next"
- ↑ Wesley Morris: Eastwood does Oakland AH; He plays East Bay reporter in “True Crime”, which fails to probe justice issues - or anything else - seriously. In: San Francisco Chronicle . March 19, 1999, accessed on August 12, 2008 : "The coming and going of a Clint Eastwood film shoot must be like a herd of tumbleweed blowing through town"
- ^ Regine Welsch: A true crime (True Crime). In: Artechock . Retrieved May 5, 2008 .
- ^ GA: True Crime (1999). (No longer available online.) In: Time Out Film Guide. Archived from the original on July 3, 2009 ; accessed on May 5, 2008 (English): "[...] for the most part this is another typically intelligent Eastwood film, a thriller that's unusually and movingly perceptive about human emotions" Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b Desson Howe: For Eastwood, It's a 'Crime'. In: The Washington Post . March 19, 1999, accessed on May 5, 2008 (English): “I believe the man has finally turned into a candidate for Mount Rushmore . [...] "True Crime" [...] is the geological equivalent of an albatross around the neck "
- ↑ Jonathan Rosenbaum: True Crime. In: Chicago Reader. Retrieved on August 12, 2008 (English): "Eastwood [...], pushing 70 but cruising women in their early 20s [...] my suspension of disbelief collapsed well before the end"
- ↑ Paul Tatara: Reviewer watches 'True Crime' grind to slow death. In: CNN.com . March 25, 1999, accessed August 12, 2008 .
- ↑ Similar to Stephen Hunter: 'True Crime'. In: The Washington Post . March 19, 1999, accessed May 5, 2008 : "A friend says you could plant corn on Clint Eastwood's face."
- ↑ Peter Rainer: Stop the Dresses! In: New York. March 22, 1999, accessed on May 5, 2008 (English): "In one sequence near the end, [...] all that's missing to make the scene complete is the orangutan Eastwood once co-starred with"
- ^ David Denby : True Crime. (No longer available online.) In: The New Yorker . Archived from the original on July 16, 2008 ; Retrieved on August 12, 2008 (English): "[...] an outrageous manipulation of the audience" Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ David Edelstein: Flesh and Bone. In: Slate . March 21, 1999, accessed August 12, 2008 .
- ^ Douglas Cruickshank: Want crime with that? In: Salon.com . April 8, 1999, accessed August 12, 2008 .
