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My friend Garth and I were sitting around last week discussing this summer's crop of movies, and we agreed that it's been one of the better summers in recent memory. Many of the big blockbusters were actually enjoyable or interesting or even daring, and the number of true dogs was down significantly. True, let us never again speak of Master of Disguise (you know, the one with Dana Carvey in a turtle suit) or The Adventures of Pluto Nash (you know, the one with Eddie Murphy in a space suit), but I'd be happy to discuss Spiderman, Bourne Identity, Minority Report, Star Wars II, Signs, K-19: The Widowmaker, Insomnia, Spy Kids 2, Lilo & Stitch, or Road to Perdition. I may not have raved about all of those movies, but they at least had something to recommend.

Even this summer's genre pictures were workmanlike, and two decent examples are Blood Work, starring Clint Eastwood, and Undisputed, starring Wesley Snipes and Ving Rhames. The first one is a standard-issue serial killer/FBI profiler flick, while the second is a standard-issue boxing movie. Neither break any new ground, but both deliver the goods to fans of their respective genres.

Undisputed is probably the more interesting of the two, in that the audience is asked to root for either a convicted rapist or a confessed murderer. In a story clearly inspired by headlines of a few years ago, the heavyweight champion of the world, George "Iceman" Chambers (Ving Rhames), has been accused and convicted of raping a woman who had willingly gone with him to his hotel room (he denies the charge, saying the sex was consensual). Forced to serve a sentence of several years during the prime of his career, he shows up in jail with a chip on his bulging bicep. There he meets the stoic Monroe Hutchen (Wesley Snipes), who was convicted of murdering his wife and her lover in a jealous rage ten years before. He has
no possibility of getting out, so he's resigned himself to building match-stick buildings and being the best pound-for-pound fighter in the prison, which he backs up with a record of 68-0.

Iceman has little interest in playing by prison rules, which leads to confrontations with the warden and the other prisoners. One incident in the mess hall sends Hutchen to solitary confinement, though it was Chambers who started it. So it's not difficult for Mendy Ripstein (Peter Falk), a foul-mouthed mobster, to set up a boxing match between the two "undisputed" champions. He just has to use his outside connections to "convince" the warden of the fight's merits.

Since choosing between a rapist and a murderer is too difficult a dilemma, most viewers will make the easier choice of quiet stoicism over loud-mouthed arrogance, and clearly the film's sympathies lie with Hutchen. But Ving Rhames is such a charismatic actor that the movie never tips its hand too far, which makes for a surprisingly compelling bout. Director Walter Hill (48 Hours) knows how to move the pace along at a rapid clip, and the fight itself builds in intensity. I could've done without the over-the-top sound design (each punch sounds like an explosion) and much of the story is a string of prison-flick cliches, but Rhames and Snipes are both immensely watchable. Fans of those two or boxing movies in general
won't be disappointed.

The same is true for Blood Work, a by-the-numbers serial killer movie that makes much of Clint Eastwood's star power. He stars as Terry McCaleb, a brilliant FBI profiler (is there any other kind in the movies?) who's been forced to retire because of a heart condition. He soon finds out, however, that the new heart he's received came because a young woman was murdered. Her sister, Graciella Rivers (Wanda De Jesus), confronts McCaleb and pleads with him to find her sister's killer. Feeling a strange sense of obligation, McCaleb ignores his doctor's orders (in a nice performance from Anjelica Huston) and starts looking for the killer.

He soon discovers that the murder wasn't random but at least the second by a man wearing a ski mask. By looking at the crime scene footage (both murders were caught on video) and re-interviewing various witnesses and family members, McCaleb starts putting the pieces together. Various red herrings come up along the way but, with the assistance of a self-described "boat-bum loser" played by Jeff Daniels, McCaleb will inevitably get his man.

I'm not a huge fan of the serial killer genre, and one of my primary complaints is that Hollywood always feels compelled to make it a mano-a-mano thing. Sure, the serial killer is a lone individual, but the investigators tracking him down are, in real life at least, always a team. But in the movies, it comes down to the one detective/profiler matching wits with the devious killer, with the detective usually having to buck his thick-headed superiors. Blood Work avoids some of those cliches since McCaleb is retired, but it trots out many others, including a confrontation between killer and cop in a remote location at night. And one scene is so reminiscent of the Dirty Harry movies I half expected Eastwood to bust out his "Do you feel lucky?" speech.

Nonetheless Blood Work, like Undisputed, delivers the goods for those who like this sort of thing. Eastwood is solid as always, and Jeff Daniels provides a nice foil for Clint's intensity. I wasn't as fond of Wanda De Jesus's performance, but she doesn't have as much to do in the role of grieving sister. And I can't complain about a movie that gives not one but two significant roles to women of color (Tina Lifford has a small but enjoyable part as a fellow detective). The summer of 2002--better than it could have been.   

J. Robert Parks 9/11/2002