Hereafter (2010)

Clint Eastwood, at the age of 80, is pushing out one film per year. That’s amazing for anyone, but not surprising for this film icon, a god of American cinema. Speaking of God, “Hereafter” is Eastwood’s latest dramatic effort, and not a small bit ironic. How so? It focuses on death and the afterlife, the hereafter, with almost no real mention of God or Allah or Buddah, Yahweh or Led Zeppelin. You know the song. Stairway blah blah. This one goes to hell.

Look, “Hereafter” is smart-looking and tackles issues -– including the death of children -– not found in most flicks. Applause! There are some beautiful segments, including a failed dinner date between a reluctant psychic (Matt Damon) and his cooking school partner (Bryce Dallas Howard), and a long montage where London grade-school twins (Frankie and George McLaren) desperately scramble about their crap London flat, trying to cover for their addict mother against two social welfare workers. They rock. They sparkle. That’s the problem. “Hereafter” has great parts scattered about long stretches of meaningless or forgettable tripe. Much like life.

Surprisingly, the script is written by Peter Morgan, the fine writer of “The Queen” and “Frost/Nixon.” The man’s writing has no known bounds until now. Toying with multi-stringed variations from “Crash” and “Babel,” this film -- finally, I get to the plot -- follows three separate arcs: Damon’s San Francisco spirit-talker, who’d rather silently push pallets than talk to the dead; the Brit twins, one of whom is killed in a street incident, while the other mourns; and a famous French TV journalist (Cecile de France), who drowns – then recovers via medical aid – in the 2004 tsunami that hit Thailand. All three souls ponder life and death, and are destined to meet by film’s end in a climax that plays like an American Express commercial, complete with sun glare.

Eastwood and Morgan are so intent on avoiding "Left Behind" style preaching, that they end up with nothing to say. Why should we believe Eastwood and Morgan if they seem to have such little belief themselves? Or even question of belief? In a key scene, a Rent-A-Preacher tells the surviving twin that his brother’s death is God’s will, nothing to be done. But why bloody not? Why can’t the kid get angry at God? On Damon’s side, he can’t touch a woman without seeing her life pain. Has he slept with one? We don’t know. Does that not drive a guy insane? No love, no sex, nothing? The female journo sets out to write a book on the afterlife. But what is in the book? We don’t really know. She also makes wild accusations that book publishers won’t discuss the afterlife. Has she been inside a bookstore, or online at Amazon? Pure crap.

Eastwood’s career is untouchable. “The Outlaw Josey Wales” and “Unforgiven” are among my all-time favorites, and “Mystic River” is a dark joy. But his latest output doesn’t hold. In “death” scenes, characters see fuzzy figures stumbling around in a mysteriously lit fog not out of place on that Jennifer Love-Hewitt show my wife considers guilty pleasure. That’s “Hereafter,” all fog, with no lighthouse to point the way, and yet no pleasure, guilty or otherwise. Final thought: Near the film’s end, single man Damon brings McLaren up to his dark London hotel room, alone, closes the door, and sits him on the bed. To hold hands. In the dark. It is a disgusting awful sick pervy scene that only a Catholic priest could cheer. Seriously, Mr. Eastwood? How did that get past the writing stage? It kills this movie dead. C-