Dirty Harry Makes Anti-Cop Movie
Clint Eastwood's Changeling doesn't portray police in a positive light.
Clint Eastwood is sort of like one of those Supreme Court justices who goes to Washington with one set of ideas, firmly established over a lifetime. After a few years’ exposure to bright shiny new folks who drop hints about how warmly they’d welcome him if only he’d merely renounce everything he stood for, the justice discovers the virtues of “evolving” — and the price of holding firm.
Once Eastwood made military movies, Westerns, and cop movies. Now, following his anti-military (Flags of Our Fathers) and anti-Western (Unforgiven) films, he has one last mission to complete, with the anti-cop picture Changeling. By coincidence, his early movies never won Oscars. Now Eastwood finds himself with armloads of awards every winter. He is fully evolved.
Changeling isn’t a terrible movie. It’s a well-made if workmanlike product, an involving drama with an especially pleasing sense of period detail. But it’s also small, earnest, and formulaic. Its dialogue lands consistently on the nose and the superb production values dress up a story with the same DNA as your standard woman-against-the-world TV movie.
Angelina Jolie, who has crossed the line between thin and emaciated, plays a young single mother in 1928 Los Angeles whose son disappears while she is at work at the telephone company. After a while, cops deliver her son back to her. Except, as she loudly insists from the start, it isn’t her son. The cops tell her to pipe down and not make trouble lest she be thrown in a mental institution.
Page 1 of 2 Next ->
Kyle Smith is a film critic for the the New York Post. His website is at www.kylesmithonline.com.
 |
 |
 |
Podcasts |  PJM Home |
Pajamas Media appreciates your comments that abide by the following guidelines:
1. Avoid profanities or foul language unless it is contained in a necessary quote or is relevant to the comment.
2. Stay on topic.
3. Disagree, but avoid ad hominem attacks.
4. Threats are treated seriously and reported to law enforcement.
5. Spam and advertising are not permitted in the comments area.
The clause regarding "hate speech" has been deleted because readers criticized it as being too loosely defined. We agreed.
These guidelines are very general and cannot cover every possible situation. Please don't assume that Pajamas Media management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment. We reserve the right to filter or delete comments or to deny posting privileges entirely at our discretion. If you feel your comment was filtered inappropriately, please email us at story@pajamasmedia.com.
29 Comments
1. Xanthippe:I like Clint Eastwood, and I like his movies. I don’t think he’s making movies to please anyone but himself – I don’t think he ever has.
How was Flags of Our Fathers unpatriotic? I’m puzzling over this – I saw it, and I cannot fathom why you would think that.
Eastwood’s movies are movies of caricatures, but it seems like that’s only ok with you as long as the charicatures follow the direction you think they ought to.
Oct 24, 2008 - 6:09 am 2. Xanthippe:Whoops – substitute “anti-military” for “unpatriotic” above. I misread what you had written – but my question remains.
Oct 24, 2008 - 6:11 am 3. Outback Jon:I also fail to see how Flags of Our Fathers was “anti-military”.
Oct 24, 2008 - 6:48 am 4. jbrookins:I havent’ seen Changeling so I can’t really comment on that film but I loved both flags of our father and letters from Iwo Jima. I thought both films were well done.
I’ve spent over 20 years in the military and didn’t find it anti-anything. But of course we all see films a bit different. Sometimes we look for a political or social aspect when in fact its just a story.
I really haven’t seen a bad Eastwood film yet. But then there is always a first.
Oct 24, 2008 - 7:31 am 5. Review: “Changeling” | KyleSmithOnline.com:[...] review of Clint Eastwood’s new Bette Davis picture “Changeling” is [...]
Oct 24, 2008 - 7:44 am 6. Kyle Smith:I refer you to my Wall Street Journal piece on “Flags of Our Fathers.” http://www.opinionjournal.com/taste/?id=110009159
Oct 24, 2008 - 7:47 am 7. OsamaLinBiden:Anti cop? That’s the most retarded thing I’ve seen on this site. How about anti-1930’s cop? Yes, that’s something we can all agree on, no? Nobody wants our police to act as they did 75 years ago.
Oct 24, 2008 - 8:10 am 8. Ex-fetus:Who cares? Hollywood is so out of it. Clueless and pretty is still clueless. I’m sure they will be the hottest hookup in the relocation camps, unless they make it to be one of Obama’s 25 million.
Oct 24, 2008 - 8:57 am 9. Dirty Harry Makes Anti-Cop Movie - Discussion Forums US:[...] he stood for, the justice discovers the virtues of
Oct 24, 2008 - 9:17 am 10. JimmyC:Is anyone else getting really sick and tired of movies about corrupt cops? L.A. Confidential was great, but since then we’ve had to deal with Dark Blue, Training Day, Pride and Glory, American Gangster, Street Kings, and countless others, and now Eastwood makes one too. Enough already.
Oct 24, 2008 - 10:02 am 11. Roark:I’ve always respected Jon Voigt 100% more than his leftist daughter Angelina Jolie.
Oct 24, 2008 - 10:07 am 12. Frank:I could never get over the fact that Clint Eastwood is a vegetarian, especially considering the “fistful of dollars/good,bad,ugly” series. He was such a badass in that movie, and I was shattered to learn that my movie hero was a PETA stooge. How can you be a badass if you only eat salad?
Oct 24, 2008 - 11:07 am 13. Valerie:I’ve only seen the trailer on TV and the red red lips on joile are SO distracting. I don’t think I could handle watching them for more than a few minutes. Won’t go see the film.
I was wondering why Eastwood has made this film right now… Who cares about corrupt LA cops? That’s been done to death, hasn’t it? I think he wanted to do a period piece and thought he’d get a winner in with jolie in the lead, maybe.
But an odd choice all around.
Oct 24, 2008 - 11:16 am 14. Someone75:Anything to make you guys the victims. He’s made plenty of pro-gun movies, and good ones at that. Plus, he’s voting McCain. What exactly is your point? He’s one of your own!
Oct 24, 2008 - 12:02 pm 15. Geoff:I am a hardcore conservative and I don’t get what the problem is.
1. As is previously stated, Clint does what pleases him-not what pleases others so why the implied agenda?
2. Have you ever looked at very many pictures of people from this time. Most of them look emaciated compared to today. They didn’t have a total diet of junk like we do now and aren’t as bloated as we are (including me). If you don’t believe me look at some depression era pictures or better yet go to a theatre that has seats from that time. They are tiny.
3. Maybe it is because you are from New York, but the fact of the matter is there is, a problem with the police in LA, always has been. Again, if you don’t believe me, just get crosswise from one of them or question something that they do, you’ll see.
Maybe some of us conservatives have been so beat up that we see issues that aren’t there. Step back and take a second look without the blue tinted lenses and you might find out that it (in this case) is just a movie.
Oct 24, 2008 - 12:32 pm 16. seguin:I’m a conservative and I don’t see the problem. I thought Letters actually did an alright job in portraying the psychotic and evil nature of Japanese militarism (notice the only reasonable Japanese officers were Western-educated). Never saw Flags of our Fathers.
Saw Unforgiven though and I thought it was a GREAT movie…kind of like Once upon a Time in the West except darker.
Not getting the whole complaint here. Seems more like an anti-tyranny, anti-overreaching government power movie to me, and that’s as conservative/libertarian as you can get.
Oct 24, 2008 - 2:02 pm 17. Anonymous:“Saw Unforgiven though and I thought it was a GREAT movie”
Me too. One of the best westerns ever made, IMO, and I own a slew of westerns.
Flags of Our Fathers: Boring. That was the problem with that movie. It was just plain boring. Making a movie that’s mainly about a propaganda effort just isn’t that interesting. I’d rather watch “Saving Private Ryan” any day of the week. Lots of fighting, no selling of war bonds makes for a more engrossing war movie.
Oct 24, 2008 - 2:56 pm 18. Tired Old Cliche:Dear Kyle Smith,
Oct 24, 2008 - 6:06 pm 19. DavidN:Yes, it is getting to be a tired old cliche of the right wing blogosphere to condemn anything coming out of Hollywood … this article is formulaic, and if you didn’t write it, anyone of a hundred others could have.
“Flags of Our Fathers” was not anti-military.
“Unforgiven” was not anti-western (I am amazed anyone could come to this conclusion, I do give you creativity points for that).
“Changeling” is not anti-cop … look up the real story this is based upon.It is actually pretty true-to-fact. The woman was actually locked away in an asylum on the orders of the police to “shut her up” when she wouldn’t play along with their story of her recovered child.
No mistake was made, they conciously brought her a child they knew not to be hers, just to “close the case” under public pressure.
How you can stretch this to be anti-cop is just plain nincompoopery.
This is a weird article. Like most of the rest of the commenters, I don’t get the anti-military comment vis-a-vis Flags of Our Fathers. My sense was that the movie portrayed how the propaganda machine in the United States manipulated the participants in the flag-raising. Rather than anti-military, it struck me as anti-exploitation of the military, which isn’t the same thing.
Unforgiven wasn’t anti-Western, it was more of a modern Western. You can’t remake Shane or Stagecoach with the same dialog and fake Indians any more…sorry.
As for a movie dealing with the LAPD in 1928…if the cops in it weren’t somewhat crooked, the story wouldn’t be very realistic. That’s just a fact. Acting like Eastwood planted this in the plot for some nefarious reason is rather silly.
Oct 25, 2008 - 1:26 am 20. Alan Kellogg:LA Cops are better today than they were back in the 30s. Back in the 30s they were thugs, socially inept, basically a disorganized crime syndicate with a chip on their shoulders. Don’t know about Changeling being one hundred percent factual, but the basics it gets right. Yes, there are times when the cops act like jerks. There were times when they acted like jerks back in the 30s, and there are times when they act like jerks today.
Chicago invented big time civic corruption. LA perfected it.
Oct 25, 2008 - 11:32 am 21. Paul:I don’t get it. If you have a movie with bad cops in it, is it really a political statement? Is it a Democratic position that cops are bad and a Republican position that they are all angels?
Movies often have villains, and I don’t see anything wrong with the villains being cops on occasion.
Oct 25, 2008 - 12:26 pm 22. Francis W. Porretto:This piece is trash. First, a movie’s story can be labeled true if the historical facts it depicts are true. The dialogues might be dramatized — and often are — but if the facts of the case are true to the historical record, the story is true.
Second, the police do not and should not receive unquestioning respect simply because they’re police. Policemen are hired public agents with statutory duties they’re paid to discharge. When they fulfill those duties and do nothing beyond them, they deserve the same respect anyone deserves for properly doing a job he’s promised to do. When they fail or deny those duties, they are as contemptible as anyone else who scamps the duties associated with his job.
Third, one who honors the truth invariably feels an obligation to see it disseminated, especially in those cases where the suppression of the truth has been to the advantage of an oppressive force. A movie that does so is a noteworthy, praiseworthy thing, especially in our time.
Mr. Smith should ponder those points before he writes his next review.
Oct 26, 2008 - 7:57 am 23. Christian Toto:I’m looking forward to his Anti-Clyde movie.
Oct 27, 2008 - 7:52 am 24. deguello:The policemean is not your friend;he’s a often a corrrupt american slob, fearful of a criminally corrupt D.A, who will lie ,arrest and,frame people to advance his career.This makes him a typical participant in the american way,which, as we are seeing, involves whoring out your vote, your principles, and even your intellectual sanity for money,advancement and success.Remember Ruby Ridge, The Dravidians at Waco, and The striking miners at Matewan W.VA,and the Duke hockey players? Under the impending Obama regime,Conservatives will find out what non-conformists,striking workers, sailors, on leave,and many blacks have known for years:The policeman is not your friend!So let’s not dump on Eastwood for recognozing the obvious!
Oct 27, 2008 - 10:43 am 25. therevolutionwas:hey frank, since when is Eastwood a vegan? Last time I read something on him, he was eating a large turkey sandwhich and drinking a beer.
Oct 27, 2008 - 5:30 pm 26. galena E:Deguello, i don’t see where your sad and twisted view of police officers come from. i know quite a few of them and they are on the force because they care about people and don’t want criminals to take advantage of them or the law. So mabey you should show a little more respect because one of them might just save your neck one day.
Oct 28, 2008 - 8:37 am 27. Sandra M:I haven’t watched an Eastwood movie since UNFORGIVEN which I hated.
He is obviously pleased with his new “insider” status. Fine. But his views on anything no longer interest me.
Eastwood’s image has always been at odds with the reality. After I listened carefully to what his movies said, I was through.
Oct 28, 2008 - 3:40 pm 28. jane m:Sandra M
I agree, Unforgiven was absolutely awful (as was Mystic River). The so-called Hero swears off his life of violence for 90% of the movie and then
when provoked beyond his patience by an evil sheriff, kills everyone in sight in the end. Huh?
Mystic River – hideous and boring. What depressing characters.
Flags was supposed to be anti-war. It was boring and nobody bothered to go see it. Sorry Clint…too nuanced?
Oct 31, 2008 - 7:47 pm 29. notaclue:Slightly off topic: Seems to me the war film that best balanced patriotism with a portrayal of the humanity of the enemy was Mel Gibson’s “We Were Soldiers.” The whole film is pro-military and pro-American, but one scene shows a young NVA soldier getting up his courage to attack the American battalion commander (Gibson). The attack lasts about two seconds and the young solier dies. Then Gibson finds the dead man’s photo of his wife and child. Pitch perfect.
Dec 7, 2008 - 3:54 pm