So after a nice little run of films by everyone's—or at least most film writers'—favorite actor-director to dump on, Clint Eastwood returns with Hereafter, his muddled attempt at a New Age suspense thriller. As someone once said, fault with Eastwood's films can usually be traced back to the script, here by Peter Morgan (The Queen), as if to exonerate the filmmaker who generally avoids substantial rewrites. And Hereafter, as naive and inept as it often is, is not without its charm. But its structure, a three-pronged storyline which slowly converges as it approaches the climax, has long past worn out any profundity it may (with emphasis) had ever possessed in cinema.
