The only thing certain in life is death and taxes. There was a time when you could have included on that list that any film directed by Clint Eastwood was definitely worth watching, but after his bland Invictus, that’s no longer a given.

But if anyone knows about falling off of horses and getting right back on them it’s Clint. On this evidence however, Eastwood may well have sat on a bucking bronco.

After an incredible Act of God that happened during her holiday, in which she suffered a near death experience, journalist Marie (Cécile de France) now feels that the world needs to be made aware of what she went through. Despite being given the opportunity to write a book about a famous French politician, Marie decides to write about what she went through on that fateful day instead, and explore the themes of what happens after death.

Meanwhile, in San Francisco, George (Matt Damon) is content with his blue-collar job. It allows him to just get on with his life in an uncomplicated fashion. What George is really doing though is attempting to distance himself from an extraordinary power he possesses: he can talk to the dead. But having done readings for people in the past, he just wants to be considered an average Joe and get on with his life normally. When his brother asks for a favour however, George soon finds himself once again communicating with those that have passed on.

Final stop, London, England. For identical twins Marcus and Jason (George and Frankie McLaren), life is quite a struggle. Their mum is a drug-addict who can’t cope with life, which often means that social workers are knocking on their door on a regular basis. Just when it feels like things can’t get any worse, tragedy strikes.

Despite coming from very different backgrounds and locations, it’s almost destiny that their paths will eventually cross. But are the answers they all desperately seek ever revealed to them?

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Eastwood has proved to be somewhat of a journeyman when it comes to his directing career. He’s shown little fear in the projects he’s overseen, and has proved himself time and again at the craft. Here though, as he did with his previous film, he has taken an interesting storyline and shown it far too much respect in bringing it to the screen.

It certainly gets off to a cracking start, with one of the most impressive film openings in quite some years. But after fifteen minutes or so, it takes on a far too pedestrian pace. All three parts had the opportunity to delve into an area ripe for questioning, but none of them deliver.

Marie’s story is a little too indulgent, as it focuses too much on her drive to get her message across, as opposed to the actual message itself.

Damon once again proves that even when he does very little, he’s still worth watching. George’s tale is easily the most absorbing; it even has a subtle emotional resonance that Damon pulls off with ease.

And then things get a little weird in the third section set in London. Out of nowhere Eastwood’s direction takes on the form of a ‘typical’ British kitchen sink drama. Essentially Eastwood does Mike Leigh. It’s suddenly all very working class, round and about the grungy streets of old London town. It’s not just that you don’t expect that kind of thing from Eastwood, it’s the fact that he doesn’t really do a very good job of it. He’s not helped by the fact that the English twins he has as his leads, would clearly struggle with simply being extras in an episode of The Bill. Or putting it another way, if acting was a language, it certainly wouldn’t be their native tongue; in fact on this evidence, they’d probably even struggle with pigeon acting. As hideous a thought as it may be, it’s like Eastwood directing a really bad episode of Grange Hill.

But the failure of this film can’t land squarely on their shoulders alone. Considering its subject matter, it does little to delve into want could possibly happen to us all once we die. In truth, the 1990 film Ghost not only handled the whole question of ‘what happens next?’ better, but told its story in a far more entertaining fashion.

With a cast made up of characters that have a distance and chilled behaviour about them, it makes it difficult to care for them as individuals or their plights.

It would have been fine if Hereafter simply left the audience with more questions than answers, but instead it asks its director just the one: why, Clint, Why?

Considering this is a film that touches on what happens when we die, it’s ironic that the only thing to look forward to while watching it was its own ending; the difference being that unlike death, it couldn’t come soon enough.