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Summary: Well acted, weak screenplay
Review: Tim Robbins and Marcia Gay Harden both give excellent performances in this movie. Sean Penn was believable in some scenes, over the top in others. My main complaint about this movie was that the story became totally unbelievable toward the end, and there were many flaws in the logic of the plot. I was surprised at how unrealistic the story line was, after reading so much critical praise about it.
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Summary: soukey79@hotmail.com
Review: I will make this short. INCREDIBLE! Very Intense! I recommend this movie to everyone.
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Summary: A depressing reunion - should be 4 1/2 stars
Review: Clint Eastwood does a superlative job in directing an extremely fine cast in his gloomy, foreboding portrayal of Dennis Lehane's poignant novel. Three boyhood friends, Jimmy, Sean and Dave who grew up in a lower middle class Boston neighborhood reunite due to the apparent murder of one of their children. The boys have taken separate and divergent paths since one of them was abducted and molested many years ago. Sean Penn is superb playing Jimmy Markham, a reformed ex-con whose daughter was murdered. The murder investigation is headed by Trooper Sean Devine played by Kevin Bacon and his partner Laurence Fishburn. Tim Robbins does a creditable job in his portrayal of Dave Boyle, a married working stiff tormented by internal demons as a result of his abduction.
Both Laura Linney and Marcia Gay Harden give convincing performances as Penn and Robbins's respective wives. In one scene when Penn learns that his daughter is actually the murder victim, he goes off the deep end. This awesome scene is reminiscent of James Cagney going ballistic in White Heat, one of the most classic scenes in cinema history. The appearance of Eli Wallach, one of the most accomplished character actors of all time, as the liquor store owner was a terrific reunion with Eastwood (not since The Good, The Bad and The Ugly).
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Summary: Mystic River is a ***** Great Movie
Review: Mystic River is one of the best movies I have seen, and Sean Penn is an outstanding actor, hope he wins the oscar for his acting.
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Summary: Injustice, Cruelty, Stupidity, but life goes on...
Review: A well-made film about how depressing and horrowing life can sometimes get in "small town," USA. Three friends growing up, branching off in different directions in life -- a detective, a local businessman-mafia (with small "m") boss, and a third friend forever damaged by what happened to him while he was a child. The end is tragic because it is based on a terrible mistake that sets friends against friends. The very last scene, a town parade, is the greatest scene of the movie because it masterfully lays bare the injustice woven into the heart of the story. And there's nothing anyone can do about it! Clint Eastwood communicates that sense of helplessness in the face of injustice very well. Not the sort of educational stuff you'd want to expose your kids to! In that final scene we are made to realize how far from perfect life is and what people can and do get away with in life. This is a tense thriller that leaves no moral way out in the end. Watch it on a great sunny day when you do not have anyhting else to worry about in your life because you will get depressed when it is over.
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Summary: Greatness On Film
Review: The problem with society today is the fact that movie critics have been watching way too many movies..and in turn, they lose touch with reality and so do we-Clint has not! He lives IT and then he shoots IT...Many people's interpretation of Mystic is simply the idea that in order to figure out the plot lies in the revelation that Dave didn't do it. And then you ask them about how things unfolded and they are as casual as Kevin Bacon's handling of the crime scene- quickly sweeping it under the procedural carpet....Many viewers just couldn't grasp the aweful Truth. In fact most bite into the casual conclusion that the boys were just messing around with the gun and then finished it off.....but everything in this movie is deceiving...EvERyThinG.
If your a guy, then your lady friend or wife might tell you that there was a latent female love triangle as the ultimate power source in Mystic River- but intellectual reaching in this movie is fine and pardoned..especially if you can grab ahold off something and not quite know what it is...Uh, and what flattened my mind is the fact that Clint knows the mechanics of the male mind OH SO WELL. The director's secrets are always locked up in a female character. For instance, watching Dave's wife was like viewing a merky Chrystal Ball with the answers swimming around in her gaze. Go ask any Shakespearian actor, one who has the Canon memorized, one who is a ravishing dude, and one who's ego is bigger then say, Tim Robbins; go ask him to compare himself to Clint and he'll become humble very quickly- VERY.
Scenes like the one where Kevin Bacon, playing a detective, showed up to investigate the murder of Jimmy's (Sean Penn) daughter were designed to deceive and throw the movie into the abstract. The camera looks into the car (we the veiwers are led to believe the body was still in the car- this is just one subconcious tool for starters)...and then after the daughter was found in the woods, Clint noodles some more in the he filmed the scene: it looked like the victem had been hacked by the Chainsaw Guy (who's movie was playing in the next theatre over, incidently). It looked as though her leg was cut off (so goes the hockey stick theory). Also, when the kids called 911 and said, "he wants to know her name," also is a diversion- "That's too stupid I thought (nobody would say that)". But there is SO much more in Mystic.
Only a female can see through such a mirage and put it back together by simply asserting that the kids set up a trap and killed out of jealousy...and that Dave's wife had a thing for Jimmy and his wife- observations beyond male viewing. I was pulled in by the subplots and allusions and Biblical references all seasonings in this Yankee Hell's Kitchen.
One blatent hint: when the kid went to go try to find his gun, he had to circle around the cubby hole with his hand to try to locate it- it wasn't in his usual spot..A Masterpiece...
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Summary: Shallow River
Review: This overhyped film fails to deliver any lasting impression due to a slow and boringly predictable plot. The dialogue is horribly monotone throughout the film and fails to bring out any emotion from either the actors or the audience. The tedious pace of the film evokes nothing more than a feeling of "come on, get this over with already." One also fails to understand what theme the film attempts to convey. Is it that violence begets violence and vigilanteism is never a sure thing? Or is it the reverse? Half-way into the film, I didn't really care what message, if any, the film tried to convey; I was simply struggling to stay awake. Stay away from this film and don't fall for the hype simply because Clint Eastwood had something to do with it. Although I love Clint Eastwood as an actor and producer in many of his films (especially westerns), he's not a master of film directing by any stretch. Skip this dud and go see something that will keep you awake and interested.
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Summary: Character Born of Place
Review: In Mystic River, adapted from the book by Dennis Lehane, director Clint Eastwood does a brilliant job of entwining place and character. First, he shows the neighborhood in Boston where the events occur from the ground and in another time. It evoked a neighborhood in my past--white, mostly Irish, decaying. Very early you get the feeling that the characters motives are born in this place in Boston and are explained by it. Kevin Bacon, who plays a Massachusetts State police inspector, views this neighborhood of his youth from above, from a bridge while investigating the aftermath of a road rage incident. He is distanced from this place, not realizing that future events will send him back there to discover the identity of a killer and realize a part of his own past. He attempts objectivity, but struggles. It is ironic that the jurisdiction for the crime, a murder, occurs in the one place where local law enforcement has no authority, a state park adjacent the neighborhood. Parks are the jurisdiction of the state police. The murder is that of a 19 year old woman, the daughter of Jimmy played brilliantly (read Oscar caliber) by Sean Penn. Penn's character, Jimmy wears bifocals when he reads, a concession to age. He owns the corner grocery store in this closely bound Irish community. It seems the hub of local activity. Jimmy is a man of standing in an anachronistic setting. He has, as we will learn, his feet in two worlds. He is a man possessing a criminal past and a more respectable present. Jimmy is the most important man in the neighborhood. I saw the film twice. The first time I missed the first five minutes. You do not want to miss the first five minutes. Much of the motivation for all the characters, especially the Tim Robbins' character Dave, is found in those few minutes. We miss the motivation for how Dave feels about himself and how he relates to his community and how it feels and relates to him. In this I got an evocation of Spike Lee's film Summer of Sam. The sociological study in both films is compelling. People are suspected, especially if they are a little different. And Tim Robbins character is shaped in difference. He was the innocent victim of a horrible crime as a boy. Yet he is treated as a pariah in the community. It is subtle as all such activities must be. Dave lives in the community; his scars have robbed him of the resources to leave, and the community is the one place he can never really live. He has an almost unnaturally close relationship with his son, the only person who does not know. Even his own wife, played by Marcia Gaye Hardin, mistrusts him, holds him at a distance. Tim Robbins plays his role brilliantly and understatedly. The point in the film where he coolly outsmarts the Lawrence Fishburne character over the legality of a car search takes Robbins a bit out of character, but it helps further suspicions of his guilt. In my mind, Robbins' performance is even better than Penn's. His character is the pivot off which we learn about the main characters, Jimmy and the neighborhood. Two more films came to my mind as I viewed this movie. The first was Sleepers, another Kevin Bacon film. The crime, child molestation, is similar. Ironically, it also provides motivation for murder. The second film was In the Bedroom. While Jimmy's wife, played by Laura Linney, does not help him hatch his actions in the bedroom the way Sissy Spacek goaded Tom Wilkerson's character, she grants him absolution and affirmation there. She enunciates his prerogative as an alpha male to act with impunity in a brief soliloquy in defense of the family. Eastwood brought author Lehane's vision to the screen beautifully. Again, it is this evocation of place that gives the characters motivation. This is a particular talent, and it seems to interest Eastwood. He made Savannah Georgia the star in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Here, in Mystic River, he shows us, far better, how place informs character.
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Summary: Almost as good as book
Review: I read the book before i saw the movie, and usually movie's based off of books don't live up to the book, this is a rare occasion on which the movie follow's the book perfectly, cutting only what needed to be cut. I absolutly loved the movie, all the actors did an absolutly magnificint job along with the directing skills of hollywood usual Clint Eastwood.
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Summary: Tsk, tsk, Clint
Review: This movie did not deserve the hype it got from artsy critics and lemming-like fans. I for one was deceived into seeing it by the hype. The trailers were enticing as well. But immediately after having seen it I was left with an emptiness and months later, I still find no quality in it that deserves the praise, "Best movie of the year."
Many reviewers here have already rehashed the plot and commented on the acting. Some have said it's a valuable critique of vigilante justice. I don't find that. To me, it seems as if director Clint Eastwood is getting more and more postmodern in his art and political musings. Eastwood's postmodern shift started most noticeably with Unforgiven, which I do regard as an excellent movie, but through the rest of the '90s and up to the present, Clint has left me dissatisfied with movies like True Crime and Bloodwork. Even the wonderfully filmed Bridges of Madison County left me uneasy with its ambiguous moral lesson.
Mystic River is a low point. It starts out well, with deep characterization and gripping emotions, but it fails to deliver what viewers want: resolution. Or are we supposed to be satisfied with an ending that makes right and wrong relative? That what happens to Tim Robbins' character is karmic destiny? I left the theater appalled at the lack of justice in the story. Am I being unrealistic? Don't we all strive for justice and are not satisfied without it?
Considering the socio-political leanings of actors Sean Penn and Tim Robbins, and to some degree Kevin Bacon, this was probably a fitting vehicle for their worldview.
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