Review – True Crime

The only surprise in this tear-jerking diatribe against capital punishment is that Clint “Dirty Harry” Eastwood starred and directed. Aside from the apparent incongruity between the actor’s prior penchant for bloody extermination of criminals and his apparent change of heart, Eastwood does a good job as a grizzled reporter who gets drawn into an execution-related story an ends up trying to prove that the condemned man is innocent. Sure, it’s got more than its share of shameless emotional manipulation. But the script is reasonably good when it isn’t side-tracked by the subplots surrounding our hero’s philandering and disintegrating family life. In any event, it’s just so nice to see a journalist portrayed as the good guy for a change. Mildly amusing