**PLOT** During the summer of 1975 three friends, Dave, Jimmy and Sean are playing out in the streets on a sidewalk which has been recently .concreted, but not yet dry. Being the kids that they are they write their names in the wet concrete. The ‘cops’ pull up and reprimand the boys and tell Dave (Tim Robbins) to get in the car. When he does it quickly becomes evident that they are not ‘cops’ at all, but predatory paedophiles, and Dave is subjected to days of abuse at their hands.
After the tragedy the boys grow apart but remain living in the same area.
The film focuses around the murder of Jimmy’s (Sean Penn) teenage daughter, Katie, decades after Dave’s abduction. Sean (Kevin Bacon) is now a police detective and has been assigned to the case to investigate Katie’s murder. Quickly Dave is under suspicion of the murder and the men’s friendship and loyalty is tested to the limits. Sean wants to do his job of finding Katie’s murderer and when Dave comes under suspicion he wants the crime solves before Jimmy takes matters in to his own hands.
There is also a sub-plot focusing on Sean’s estranged wife, who is pregnant with his child.
**OPINION** Watching any film with Kevin Bacon in is always expected to be difficult for me. After seeing him as Noakes in Sleepers 1996, I associate his characters with evil, just from that one disturbing film. Mystic River seemed to bring me out of that way of thinking with his performance as Sean. I would have put Bacon’s character down as the killer!
Not only did this film hold my interest, but I find myself intimately drawn in by each and every one of the characters, this accredited to the fantastic direction by Eastwood and the full on powerful cast performances, as above, joined by Laurence Fishbourne, Laura Linney and Marcia Gay Harden.
Sean Penn won a Best Actor Academy Award for his role – and rightly deserved, he was on form as ever. And a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award was won by Tim Robbins whose performance was outstanding, possibly his best.
The DVD features ‘2003 Bravo TV Special – From Page to Screen’ bonus feature. I didn’t watch it, so can not give my opinion.
Directed by: Clint Eastwood Written by: Brian Helgeland (Screenplay) Dennis Lehane (Book) Released: 2003 DVD run time: 132 minutes Classification: 15
Review also on dooyoo - lisajo July 2009
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Jul 19th, 2009
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