Clint Eastwood, 2009. US.

The 2004 Indian Ocean Boxing Day Tsunami, the events of 7/7 and an exploration of what happens to us when we die form the plot of Clint Eastwood’s latest film. Matt Damon is George Lonegan psychic reader turned blue-collar factory worker, who, through a series of unrelated events that occur over a number of years cross paths with a French television journalist (Cécile De France) and a young Londoner, Marcus (Frankie and George McLaren), who is grieving over the death of his twin brother.

Clint Eastwood’s latest is an unusual film. With this, his 31st feature Eastwood tackles the afterlife. Its not the first time that the filmaker has worked within the supernatural; his sophomore directorial outing High Plains Drifter saw him playing a lawman turned ghost, yet this does mark the first time he has worked in the UK and France. This geographical movement from his native America, after his previous excursion to South Africa with last year’s Invictus marks a shift in Eastwood’s working pattern, with it of note that it is only in his later life that really worked outside of the US (an obvious exemption being White Hunter, Black Heart), with a distinct marker in the form of the Iwo Jima double-bill perhaps defining the point when Eastwood expanded his perspective cinematically.

There is a lot of good in Hereafter. The opening sequence, in which the events of the Boxing Day Tsunami are restaged is  visually stunning, Eastwood’s vision putting the likes of 2012 to shame, capturing the horror of the occasion perfectly. The sequence set around the 7/7 London bombings is surprisingly effective too, incredibly chilling without seeming too crass. The exposé of scam readers is really nicely done too. A Richard Kind cameo is never a bad thing either.

When the focus shifts to London, in which Marcus’s drug-adled mother flails around the scene like a drug-alded mother always does on-screen, and in which a child actor fluffs his lines almost continuously for much of his performance, its hard not to surmise that Eastwood is attempting some kind of ill judged attempt at British kitchen sink realism. It really doesn’t work, with its biggest misgiving being that for the most part this section of the film doesn’t actually feel like a “Clint Eastwood Picture”. It feels sloppy and amateur, which is everything that Eastwood isn’t. The London scenes are capped by a truly bizarre funeral, in which, for reasons unexplained, the young boy at the centre of the film is forced to leave through the front doors of the chapel, as another party makes their way in.

Its not only the London section of the film which suffers. A typical God taste to pavaroti. Jay Mohr turns in a career worst performance as George’s brother, which is a shame considering how much talent the guy showed way back when in Doug Liman’s Go. Generally speaking, the script verges on the awful for much of the films running time, with only the compelling central performances from Damon and Cécile De France preventing their relevent sections from descending into the same hammy faultlines of the London portion. There are major temporal issues, with the films pacing. The story takes place over a number of years yet no one ages,  or seemingly even develops, and unexplored subplots like the one in which Bryce Dallas Howard appears hints at trouble in the editing room (uncharacteristic for Eastwood, a clean, precise filmmaker).

Like Fincher’s The Social Network, Hereafter deals with recent history in a compelling enough manner. Eastwood’s use of the 7/7 bombings and the Boxing Day Tsunami as plot points may sound disrespectful or contrived on paper, yet it actually works fairly well on-screen.

The film closes with a sequence apt of the unusual nature of much of the film. For such a cynical filmmaker, Clint Eastwood is surprisingly capable of laying on the schmaltz when compelled to do so (see the finale of Million Dollar Baby, the whole of The Bridges Of Madison County), yet here, in a turn of events that wouldn’t be out of place in a Jean-Pierre Jeunet film, Hereafter falters. And with that falter, bemusement sets in, the overriding sensation felt by Eastwood’s latest work.

Adam Batty is the editor of Hope Lies at 24 Frames Per Second, and can be found on Twitter.