Clint Eastwood's True Crime is a clock movie. Its hero has under 24 hours to prove a death-row inmate's innocence, and we are reminded of his deadline throughout by various shots of clocks that grow more ominous as the film wears on. The clock-movie subgenre has had its ups (High Noon) and downs (D.O.A.--the Quaid/Ryan version); True Crime is a mixed bag: its leisurely pace (curiously) works for it, but its lack of a meaty and seamless plot robs the film of urgency.

Eastwood stars as Oakland Tribune scribbler Steven Everett, a womanizing lout who relocated from New York after a sexual tryst with the wrong girl (the daughter of his employer). He has inherited a "human interest sidebar" piece from recently deceased colleague Michelle (Mary McCormack): the last day in the life of convicted killer Frank Beachum (Isaiah Washington). Smelling something rotten in his routine follow-up, Everett pulls a Dick Tracy and re-investigates the case, turning up evidence that lawyers and judges overlooked after six years of trials and appeals. (Thankfully, his boss Alan (James Woods) points out the implausibility of such an occurence.) Few have faith in Everett: not Bob (Denis Leary), a coworker whose wife is sleeping with Steven; not his own wife or daughter, both of whom he neglects; and certainly not the people directly involved in Beachum's case: they believe Everett's accusations to be the ramblings of a man tumbled off the wagon.

We are treated to (ineffectual) Rashomon-style flashbacks that eventually spell out what really happened that fateful day when Beachum supposedly murdered a convenience store clerk. But a number of questions the film raises remain frustratingly unanswered. Why, for instance, did Michelle leave behind all her paperwork on her story filed neatly in a box in her home? Was she expecting to die in a car accident, and for Everett to break into her place looking for information instead of, say, her desk at the Tribune? Why does James Woods' character defend his fierce loyalty to Everett by stating, "I've worked with him for three and a half years!"? In newspaper time, this seems like nothing--surely not long enough for an editor to go out on a limb and risk public embarrassment. And how is it that a lone ranger properly solves the Beachum mystery in mere hours, anyway? (Said solution is, alas, irritatingly simple.)

However, what I really want to know is how Everett can score with so many young chicks! True Crime marks the first time that Eastwood looks genuinely old onscreen. When frail Steve prances around shirtless, it's the most unsexy moment of Clint's on-screen career. I suspect that True Crime would have been a better vehicle for Jeff Bridges or Michael Douglas--actors used to seeking redemption onscreen, and whose physical appeal is still viable.

What True Crime has going for it is a handful of brilliant sequences. Eastwood's game of "speed zoo" with his daughter sums up in two minutes everything that's wrong with the career-oriented parents of America circa 1999. (It's also the most rousing bit of action in the film.) Michael McKean as a cheeky prison priest provides some genuinely uncomfortable moments--and a strategically placed lens flare during his final scene is the movie's best joke. (The picture's symbolism doesn't end there: prison signs are written in the same font as the Oakland Tribune banner; a little girl crayons pictures of "greener pastures"; and so on and so forth.)

Beachum's relationship with his family is as potent as Penn's in Dead Man Walking, although I couldn't shake the feeling that True Crime's final scene had been informed by Walking's wrenching conclusion--even if it was photographed in vintage Eastwood style by veteran lenser Jack N. Green. And the performances are generally terrific--particularly that of Diane Venora, who adds depth as essentially the same woman she played in Heat. Unfortunately, Leary is robbed of his profanity, a weapon he wields better than any working comedian right now.

Eastwood started off the decade so well, with the one-two punch of Unforgiven and the vastly underrated A Perfect World (a mainstream film so unformulaic it confused audiences; it's Clint in a very contemplative mood). He has a late career desire to adapt books, but translating bestsellers (such as Absolute Power and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil) into pictures seems to hamper his lyricism and jazzy improvisational style.-Bill Chambers