My Review

Mystic River is the 2003 grim masterpiece directed by Clint Eastwood. It was adapted from Dennis Lehane’s (author of Gone Baby Gone, Shutter Island, The Drop, and Live By Night) 2001 novel. The film deals with solemn and taboo issues such as: child molestation, murder, survivor’s guilt, repressed rage, and revenge. While these issue are very gloomy they should in no way detract from the story on display.
In Boston, 1975 three boys’ names Sean, Dave, and Jimmy play hockey on the street and decide to carve their names in wet concrete on the street. However, they are caught by two men; one claiming to be a police officer. Upon learning that Dave not live directly in the surrounding area the officer takes him and claims he is driving him home to his mother. But the boys immediately tell their parents and Dave does not end up coming home. He ends up being molested by the man claiming to be a police officer and the other man in the car with him which turns out to be a priest. Dave eventually escapes from his kidnappers and returns home, but is traumatized and withdrawn, permanently severing the trio’s friendship and each boy goes their separate ways into adulthood.
Flash-forward twenty-five years with the three still living in the same Boston area. Dave (Tim Robbins) is a blue collar worker with a wife and young son still haunted by his sexual assault and abduction. Jimmy (Sean Penn) is an ex-con running a convenience store with a daughter from a previous marriage and two young daughters with his current wife Annabeth (Laura Linney). Jimmy’s previous wife died while he was incarcerated for murder leaving him with three loyal but dim witted brothers-in-laws who constantly check up on him. Sean (Kevin Bacon) is a detective with the Massachusetts State Police whose pregnant wife inexplicably left him with no explanation, depressing him and irritating him in equal measures. Jimmy and Dave remain neighbors and are related by marriage. One night Jimmy’s 19-year-old daughter Katie (Emmy Rossum) goes missing and is later found beaten to death in the park the next day and Dave just happened to come home with blood all over him claiming to have “bashed a mugger’s” head in. After several days Dave’s wife Celeste (Marci Gay Harden) begins to suspect Dave having committed the murder after hearing no news of the mugger’s death, hearing Katie’s death happened around midnight which was the same time Dave claims he was out drinking at the same bar Jimmy’s daughter was in, and witnesses attesting that Dave was possibly one of the last people that Katie saw before her demise.
Sean and his partner Whitey Powers (Laurence Fishburne) are assigned to the case and fear that possibly Dave or Katie’s boyfriend Brendan (Tom Guiry) may be the key to discovering her murder. Jimmy feels the police are too ineffective and slow, so he decides to use his ex-con brothers-in-law and his connections to discover who has decided to kill his beloved daughter.
As you can see the material is pretty grim and depressing in nature. But one of the upsides is that the story is very gripping. You see people such as Sean, Jimmy, and Dave every day. Possibly at the bank, shopping at the grocery store, or walking down the street, but you never think about what their lives are like and what their inner thoughts are. Mystic River attempts to do just that, so you feel as if you have lived in the Boston neighborhood your whole life and know the people that inhabit it, their history, and emotions.
The acting in the movie is phenomenal and flawless, with particular attention going toward Sean Penn and Tim Robbins. Penn plays Jimmy as the ex-con he is: very hot tempered, knows how to navigate stealthily in a criminal underworld that he left long ago after settling down and having children, and how the police will never expel the justice he desires for his daughter’s killer. He is devastated and grief stricken by Katie’s death, but it also supplies the fuel and rage to bring the responsible party to justice. Tim Robbins as Dave is much more subdued and sullen. Walking with a permanent slouch and odd gait, it looks as if he is carry 50 extra pounds on his shoulders and trying to look as comfortable as possible. He seems to have no sense of humor and appears to have serious clinical depression from his traumatic encounter with his captors. Robbins embodies fear, anger, sadness, and warmth do his role with ease. Both performances are without a doubt the strongest factor in the film. Without these two actors, the movie probably would not have worked, because Robbins and Penn allow us to not only understand their respective characters, but care and sympathize with them. The acting is top notch by both actors, but Kevin Bacon, Laurence Fishburne, and Marcia Gay Harden do not slack off in their roles, but add vulnerability and determination to a thrilling story.
If I have to fault the movie for one something it would be the pacing. Myst