Eastwood's latest is a sometimes diverting hash of several Hollywood formulas, made interesting by the spectacle of a bony-limbed unarmed Clint flailing around as loser ex-alcoholic reporter Steve Everett, who has been assigned to interview a condemned murderer on the day of his execution, and write a "human interest sidebar" piece. Everett of course pursues his own last-minute investigation into the case, drumming up a little suspense before the inevitable feelgood ending. The tension between his editors' (a happily hammy James Woods and a forgettable Denis Leary) desire for human-interest fluff and Everett's stubborn pursuit of the innocent-man-accused thriller story effectively sums up Eastwood's own unfortunate confusion as storyteller, which leads the film into halfhearted family drama "sidebars" involving both Everett's own family (including a daughter played by Eastwood 's real daughter Francesca) and that of the condemned man (who is played effectively by Isaiah Washington), further compressing the already-unbelievable new-evidence-uncovered-minutes-before-lethal-injection investigative plot . True Crime's a mess, and anyone who paid full price will indeed feel litigious afterward, but for those interested in Eastwood's partly-vain partly-wry acceptance of his transformation from the-man-with-no-name and other armed studs to failed family man fart who's such a hard-ass he still smokes at work, it's worth watching on tv someday.