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HOMICIDES, THANKS TO THE "THREE STRIKES" LAW
 Clint
Eastwood personifies a police officer who relentlessly pursues
criminals. In Blood Work, which
he directs at the age of 72 based on the novel by Michael
Connelly, he risks his life in the role of elderly FBI agent
Terry McCaleb. When the film begins, he is at a crime scene
where his name and a nine-digit number are crayoned onto cardboard
as a serial killer's calling card. On leaving the scene, he
spots someone suspicious, who suddenly runs, and chases him
without backup until he has a heart attack. He then retires
from the FBI for medical reasons, buys a boat, makes his home
in San Pedro harbor, and awaits a heart donor to match his
unusual blood type. Two years later, he finally receives the
transplant, but soon Graciella Rivers (played by Wanda de
Jesus) visits him in his boat to ask his help in apprehending
her sister's killer. At first uninterested in her request,
she informs him that his heart donor was her sister, and he
agrees. At first he tries to get assistance from LAPD detective
Ronaldo Durango (played by Paul Rodriguez), the one who did
not provide backup during the chase, but the response is negative
and rude. McCaleb then approaches officer Jaye Winston (played
by Tina Lifford), who attributes her promotion in the County
Sheriff's office to his help in solving an earlier case. (Meanwhile,
he has blood work done, to check on the status of his transplanted
heart.) After reviewing tapes of the crime scene in the convenience
store where Graciella's sister was murdered and visiting the
scene of the crime, he finds a connection with a similar case
where the murder victim died before an emergency ambulance
arrived. He also discovers that the 911 call was placed before
the murder. The inference is that the murderer was deliberately
trying to kill someone so that the victim's heart could be
transplanted into someone's body. Someone, in other words,
hacked into a medical website to find out all those with a
certain blood type. Thus the killer stalked and shot Graciella's
sister in the head and called 911 so that her heart could
be transplanted into McCaleb, who in turn might be implicated
as the murderer. Soon, the serial killer resumes his evildoing,
murdering someone and leaving the same calling card. The clues
point to a psychotic two-time loser who had retired from serial
killing until McCaleb got his heart so that he could taunt
him, and there is an inevitable showdown in which good triumphs
over evil. Meanwhile, Graciella has fallen in love in with
McCaleb; with her son fascinated by McCaleb, the three make
a happy family when the film ends to the chagrin of Durango.
As is Eastwood's custom, the film carries an important political
message: Those who have been convicted of two felonies who
commit a third have no qualms about pulling off murders, since
any subsequent conviction (even for a simple holdup) will
have the same effect under the three-strikes law--lifetime
imprisonment.
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Eastwood's
apparent campaign to repeal the law in order to reduce homicide
is made reasonably explicit early in the film, may be forgotten
as the plot unfolds, but is supported by the loony actions
of the film's villain, whom film-viewers will probably guess
early enough in the film. MH
IRAN'S
ILLIBERAL GOVERNMENT EXPOSED BY A HIJACKER
Although Low Heights
(aka Low Altitude and Ertefae
Past in Farsi), directed by Ebrahim Hatamikia,
is about the hijacking of an airplane, the drama enables filmviewers
to assess conditions in contemporary Iran. Ghaseem (played
by Hamid Farokhnejad) has given up hope of ever finding happiness
in his native Iran. Although he has funds to migrate to another
country, he evidently lacks government approval. Accordingly,
he buys airplane tickets for his entire family with the intention
of hijacking the plane, but without any clear destination.
When the family boards a propeller flight for Bandar Abbass,
Ghaseem has told them that they have jobs already lined up
with Total Oil Corporation. Once midair, Ghaseem pulls out
a gun to hijack the flight; the small airport where he boarded
did not have a security-screening machine, and no pat-down
search was conducted. Emotional outbursts, one after the other,
constitute most of the dialog at this point. Presumably, we
could be laughing at all the nonsense spoken, but the tragedy
is real. The pilot, pressed for a non-Iranian destination,
suggests a landing in Dubai; but just as the plane lands there,
control of the gun passes to the airplane's security guard,
so the plane takes off again. With insufficient fuel to land
at any airport in Iran near the Persian Gulf, the plane crash
lands somewhere in a mountain desert region. The film ends
before disclosing the fate of the crew and passengers, who
survive the landing, including Ghaseem's second son, who is
born on the flight. Why did Ghaseem take such extraordinary
measures to fly his family out of Iran? Clearly, he is unemployed
and desperate for steady work to provide security to his family.
Despite the wealth accruing from Iran's oil revenues, the
film discloses that not all oil workers have job security
or medical benefits. His son suffers from a malady, presumably
autism, which could have been prevented by a single injection
at birth. One member of his family was whipped thirty times
for indulging in alcohol, thus hinting that the Iranian regime's
punishments far exceed the crimes. Ghaseem might, of course,
have applied for an immigrant visa, but he evidently was not
aware how to undertake a legal method of migrating from Iran.
Thus, while the story focuses on a pathetic melodrama, and
the discourse is frantic with occasional humor, the message
is that the Iranian government is not responsive to the needs
of some of its most humble and loyal citizens. MH
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