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You can never overrate the man with no name.

Kim Hollis: In the wake of box office hit and the Academy Awards winner Million Dollar Baby, Clint Eastwood could do no wrong. Since then, all of his films except Gran Torino have earned less than $40 million at the box office and proven disappointing performers during awards season. This list includes Flags of Our Fathers, Letters from Iwo Jima, Changeling, Invictus, Hereafter and now (presumably) J. Edgar. Have we overrated Eastwood as a director?

Edwin Davies: It could be argued that we may have over-rated him, since I for one keep expecting each new Eastwood film to be, if not the next Gran Torino, at least the next Million Dollar Baby or Mystic River. However, I also think those films have skewed people's impression of Eastwood as a director by making it seem like he's someone who delivered big hits and has suddenly hit a rough patch, whereas in reality he hasn't been a consistent hitmaker. He makes the occasional film that catches fire, but most of them don't and he has been content following his own path, making the films that he wants to make regardless of whether they'll be huge successes. Much like Adam Sandler, he can do pretty much what he wants at this point since he is a genuine living legend in Hollywood, but unlike Sandler he seems to keep pushing himself with each new film, trying something different and knowing that he'll be allowed to because his films don't cost a huge amount of money to make and they almost all end up making a profit on theatrical release (globally, at least) and do pretty solidly once they get released on DVD/Blu-ray. So we have over-rated him, if only because we have let a few big hits alter our perception of his career as a whole.

Tim Briody: Edwin's right, Eastwood has never been a solid box office success in his directing career. His two runaway awards successes, Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby, are his only $100 million hits besides Gran Torino. He's gotten Oscar nominations for some of the films mentioned as disappointments as well. While J. Edgar is by virtually all accounts a mess (I think trying to cover Hoover's entire life was a bit too wide a net to cast), he's still able to attract A-list talent to his films, he keeps budgets down ($35 million reported negative cost) and is the anti-James Cameron/Terrence Malick, averaging one film a year for the last decade plus. The perception that his films are solid box office is clouded by Million Dollar Baby and Gran Torino.

Bruce Hall: To my knowledge he's never laid any specific claim to greatness, so I can't call him overrated. Clint Eastwood is a man who has earned the right to do what he wants to, and he's not exactly churning out garbage, so who cares what I think? Dollars and cents are easy to quantify, but creativity is a very subjective thing. Directors who are able to operate with this level of creative autonomy are usually controversial, and I imagine that history's perception of Eastwood's achievements will likewise continue to evolve over time. J Edgar may not be one of his best films, but it's the film the man wanted to make. As I mentioned in a previous post, there are certain expectations associated with an Eastwood film, but we're the ones who have largely defined them.

If J. Edgar meets Mr. Eastwood's standards but not mine, I suppose I can go ahead and hang my hat on that. But at the end of the day, he's Clint Freaking Eastwood, and I am just a guy with a laptop. His films do cost very little money, and they are usually profitable. So who's gonna tell Clint Eastwood to stop making movies? Me? No sir, I don't think I AM feeling lucky today.

Brett Beach: Five important things to keep in mind about Eastwood. 1. He works fast and clean; like fellow American Woody Allen, he cranks 'em out at a prodigious rate at reasonable budgets. 2. He does not write his own scripts and seldom makes changes (although he does compose his own music often) He is beholden to whatever material suits his fancy and whatever screenwriter he wants to work with or who has a script he likes. This is why we have Absolute Power, Blood Work, True Crime and The Flags of Our Fathers opposite A Perfect World, Million Dollar Baby, Bird and Sands of Iwo Jima. 3. He often works with non-professional actors or (in my opinion) makes weird casting choices, which is why, for example, you have the really bad bookends to The Bridges of Madison County with the actors as the adult children. 4. As far as I know, like fellow WB stablemate Stanley Kubrick, Eastwood has had final cut since the 1970s. We will probably never hear of a director's cut of one of Clint's films or grumbling over a film being taken away from him. Every year, he makes the film he wants to make. 5. He has won two Academy Awards for directing. It would be hard to avoid "overrating" him. He is a great director with a minuscule public ego and (over the last 25 years or so) a singular vision that he seems to follow whether the source is history, a haunting original screenplay, or beach reading pulp. I know he could care less whether a film is a hit. I think because of the rate of his output, he has made more wildly uneven films than other directors, but he is always true to his vision. Curmudgeonly so.

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