Blood Work

Clint Eastwood produced, directed and stars in this familiar, anemic thriller about a serial killer who taunts a retired veteran FBI profiler with crime scene notes written in blood. The pivotal teaser is a numerical code that baffles experts but gets cracked in one curious gaze by a schoolboy. A promising spin on the musty framework is that Agent McCaleb (squinty but very game septuagenarian Eastwood), who lives on a boat in Miami Vice fashion, has a heart attack just minutes into the picture. He receives a transplant only to find out that his new ticker has a bizarre connection to the very case he’s working. With Jeff Daniels as McCaleb’s buffoon neighbor, Paul Rodriguez as a rival city detective and Anjelica Huston as a no-nonsense cardiologist fed up with McCaleb’s reckless return to duty. Brian Helgeland’s script is based on Michael Connelly’s novel.