This is so unlike anything else Eastwood has ever directed that it feels borderline experimental for him. In adapting a famously populated true crime novel, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil works best as a document of an entire oddball town rather than a traditional narrative. It eschews any sense of immediacy and plot movement in favour of tangents anchored by strange conversations or character introductions and explorations. I actually wish it carried on in this mode for the entire runtime instead of digging into the sluggish courtroom drama that bogs down the last hour, meaning most of its characteristic charm eventually fades away. The closest we’ll ever get to seeing Clint Eastwood’s Slacker.

Watched on Warner Archive blu-ray.