Firstly; I suppose I'd better lay my cards on the table right from the outset. I'm not really a big fan of anyone in this film. Sean Penn - I could take him or leave him, I'm afraid. He does a fine job of looking either intense or anguished, but doesn't seem to ever do very much else. Tim Robbins - sorry, but he really doesn't seem to have any appreciable charisma to me. I don't doubt that the man can act; it's just that, unlike some other actors (Pacino, for example), he never lets you under his skin. There's always a slight barrier there. And as to Kevin Bacon - well, he's got six degrees of looking vacant, but that's about it.
So I wasn't expecting to enjoy this film at all. And yet, almost despite myself, I did. Don't get me wrong, though - it's not in my top ten list of favourite films or anything, and I still don't understand why it got as much critical acclaim as it did - but, given that I was expecting to hate it, the fact that I came away with more than a sneaking affection for it is still a pretty high recommendation.
The film begins with three young kids playing street hockey. Dave (Robbins), Jimmy (Penn) and Sean (Bacon) are firm friends, but things are soon to change. Two mysterious strangers pull up, and, claiming to be Police officers, bully the boys into entering their car. Only Dave is finally cajoled, leading to a nightmarish ordeal for him which will taint the rest of his life, and alienate the three former friends from each other.
We rejoin the trio many years later. After that fateful day their lives have taken radically different paths - Sean (that's Kevin Bacon, not Mr. Penn) is now a police detective, Jimmy is a former criminal turned family man, and Dave, having had a hard time dealing with a world that treated him so terribly in his younger years, finally seems to be getting his life together with his wife and young son. But the three are thrown together by tradgedy once again when Sean finds himself investigating the murder of Jimmy's nineteen-year-old daughter, and Dave's ambiguous behaviour on the night of the killing paints him as the prime suspect.
Laid out in such stark terms, the situation sounds a little forced. Heavy-handed, even. But it's never portrayed in such stark terms - at the beginning of the film, Eastwood (he's the director, by the way. You may know him better as "Clint") keeps his distance from the actors, almost as if he's just letting events play out in front of him - you feel almost like an eavesdropper as the characters slowly unfold the story before you. The script is superb, in that the actual story only becomes clear as you learn more about the characters - plot exposition for the most part only comes as you learn more about the characters themselves.
So - good script, good director: but it really comes together thanks to the casting. Earlier I listed what I thought were the weaknesses of the three main actors - in this film, they're asked to play up to those weaknesses. Sean Penn does intense and anguished par excellence - that's all this film asks of him. Kevin Bacon, as the face of the law, has to be a bit removed and not too emotionally involved - he can do that with knobs on. And Tim Robbins - he really shines in this film. As in The Shawshank Redemption, he comes across as a man apart, a man who can never really be "read" because he's always keeping something back: in this film, because of his performance, you're always kept guessing as to his real actions/motives. Given that his character has gone through so much, and that he has so much in him that he can never share with other people, you can understand why other people are slightly unsettled by him and feel he's not to be trusted.
So - not as good as the critics and the award-awarding people will tell you, but still a powerful story well told.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Production Year: 2003 - Drama - Director: Michael Winterbottom - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring: Tim Robbins, Samantha Morton, Om Puri, Jeanne Balibar
Production Year: 2004 - Drama - Director: Nick Cassavetes - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over, 12 years and over - Starring: Rachel McAdams, Ryan Gosling, Gena Rowlands
It's a good review with a VERY strong personal voice, but remains balanced and thorough. You take a while to get going at the start, but it's still very helpful Zx
danielse 09.06.2004 09:53
I think you've done a good job there of summing up the ambivalence this movie induces. On the one hand it has pretensions of Shakespearian tragedy, on the other it totally fails to escape it's origin as a page-turning, but, ultimately, putdownable book.
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Advantages: An acting masterclass by the cream of the crop Disadvantages: Some ends left untied but this is also part of the fantastic unnerving feeling the film generates throughout.
audreyh 10.02.2005 (10.02.2005)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Mystic River (DVD)
![Mystic River [2003] [DVD]](http://picnica.ciao.com/uk/78511368.jpg "Mystic River [2003] [DVD]")
Jun 8th, 2004
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