Nothing but a Man

Clint Eastwood mellows into the sunset

A A A Comments (0) By Manohla Dargis Wednesday, Mar 17 1999

As with nearly every male star in Hollywood, Eastwood likes to pair himself with younger women, but here his vanity doesn't get the better of his art. In True Crime, Eastwood's womanizer strikes out more than he wins, and there's a new vulnerability to the rejection. During the film's opening scene, Eastwood lets us see Everett openly leering at his young companion, whose talk is less enthralling to him than her body. And when she turns him down, there's regret in her rebuff for the younger man who once was. Eastwood is playing a womanizer, but a womanizer newly dependent on his uncertain charms because his own beauty is almost a memory. Later, when Everett nails his boss's wife, Eastwood makes sure to show himself with only a towel around his waist. There's something shocking about the star's nakedness. Eastwood looks good for his age -- he turns 69 in May -- but he also looks his age. His face is a pucker of wrinkles, and when he hitches up his pants to tuck in his shirt there's something of an old man in the gesture, or maybe it's the way the pants flap around those skinny legs. The best and smoothest engine still purrs, but now it knows that being first to the finish is no longer what counts. Which is why when Eastwood hits the gas during an 11th-hour chase sequence in True Crime, it's as much a send-up of genre cliché as it is absolutely necessary. Eastwood is still in the race, he just doesn't need to outrun the years anymore -- or his own legend.