Clint Eastwood’s second directorial foray this season is certainly a world away from the nicely polished Changeling. We are talking rough edges. Clint is fantastic as the grizzled old racist bastard – everyone else, not so much. The acting is truly atrocious. I have never been one for a movie being so bad it is good – but juxtaposing really amateur actors with a master like Clint was actually pretty entertaining. The script is one step better than awful, which kinda works with the super indie feel (I’d be shocked if the imdb budget number of a $35M is correct). I am interested in the way that the subjects of racism and specifically ethnic slurs are approached, but I’m not sure I totally agree with the basic message. Yes, I agree that it is dumb that taboos exist over certain words but that doesn’t make it okay to propagate stereotypes just because one disagrees with the taboos. Surprisingly, the tone of this film was pretty typical for Eastwood’s direction. I had hoped for a little more ass kicking and bit less morality. He is such a bad ass that you just want to see him let loose. But all in all I gotta admit I did enjoy it. Strange – but it is one of those rare cases where the whole is actually more than the sum of its parts.