Changeling (2008): review: 7.5/10

 *

A single mother`s chid disappears. The L.A.P.D. return the wrong child, then, when the mother protests, put her in an asylum. She is helped by  an evangelical preacher, who is campaigning against political corruption in Los Angeles. Her child is discovered to have been abducted among many other boys, and subsequently murdered.

The complexities of the plot are deftly handled, and Eastwood maintains tension throughout, though the film does sustain the goodies versus baddies characterisation that invariably drives his work.

A Perfect World (1993): review: 9/10

Two prisoners escape in Texas, one is much nastier than the other. They kidnap a fatherless boy.

This is a melancholy film notable for combination of two plot elements: the first is the close and sometimes charming realationship that develops between escaped convict and a kidnapped boy which describes tenderly the importance of fathers for boys (especially those, it would appear, forced to suffer the restrictions of a Joehovah's Witness mother).

The second plot element traces the attitudes of macho policemen: these attitudes are set in relief by the presence of Laura Dern as an official seconded to join the all male team by the mayor's office: she is treated unpleasantly by her surly male peers, whose instincts for violent solutions lead to the unnecessary death of their quarry.

Costner is very good: the boy is supurb, as is Dern; Eastwood more formulaic.

White Hunter Black Heart (1990): review- 8/10

In the late forties, an American film director goes to Africa to make a film, but is distracted by the chance of shooting an elephant.

A study of arrogance in various guises- rudeness, racism, insensitivity to others, callousness, vainglory, machismo and disrespect for nature.

These qualities are personified by the white hunter and in others in the colonial society of the hunting station.

Million Dollar Baby (2004): review- 8.5/10

The rise and fall of a female boxer.

The performances are all excellent, likewise the pacing and photography.

The film includes many engaging vignettes of life in a boxing gym, and is not humourless, though it touches existential themes.