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Movies Forum Index » Movie Reviews Forum » Review: Mystic River (2003)
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| Author |
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| Jon Popick |
 Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2003 11:05 pm |
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Planet Sick-Boy: http://www.sick-boy.com
"We Put the SIN in Cinema"
© Copyright 2003 Planet Sick-Boy. All Rights Reserved.
Maybe I've just seen too many episodes of The Practice, but the whodunit
portion of Clint Eastwood's Mystic River was so easy to crack, I was able to
do so while listening to Game Four of the Red Sox-Yankees ALCS in one ear.
That can't possibly be a good thing. With over an hour to go in the film, I
had the ending all mapped out in my head (as well as the exact number of Tim
Wakefield's strikeouts - I'm a multi-tasker), which left me teetering on the
edge of boredom as I started looking for things to complain about in this
review.
River, in case you've missed the commercials, is the overly praised 24th
film directed by Eastwood (hey, if Tarantino can get away with it, why not
Clint?). The story is based on Dennis Lehane's novel about three friends
from a blue-collar section of Boston. A disturbing prologue shows the trio
as boys, carving their names into a freshly poured sidewalk after playing
street hockey. A car pulls up and a man gets out, flashing a badge and
hollering about destruction of municipal property. He drags young Dave into
the car and speeds off, as Sean and Jimmy watch in shock. Dave is sexually
abused for four days but manages to escape.
Twenty-five years later, only Sean (Kevin Bacon, Trapped) has been able to
escape the old neighborhood. He's a Massachusetts State Police detective
called in to investigate a murder. The victim happens to be the oldest
daughter of ex-con Jimmy (Sean Penn, I Am Sam), who runs the area's
convenience store. One of the last people to see 19-year-old Katie (Emmy
Rossum, Songcatcher) alive is Dave (Tim Robbins, The Truth About Charlie),
who, perhaps not so coincidentally, came home that night to wife Celeste
(Marcia Gay Harden, Casa de los Babys) with a bloody stomach wound and a
story about beating a stranger to death.
So River isn't as much like Sleepers as its trailer may make it seem. It's
about loss and grieving and the brotherhood of grimy neighborhood street
justice, and maybe even a little about fate, too. Was Jimmy's first wife
murdered because he was lucky enough to avoid the grip of child molestation?
Is Sean being dragged back to his old stomping grounds to fulfill some kind
of weird destiny? Could the reason Dave is constantly lit like some kind of
Hammer horror film creature have anything to do with anything? These are
the kind of questions that will be running through your head if you crack
the mystery too early. I don't recommend doing so because I really liked
River until this point, and everything that followed felt like a leaden
exercise.
I'm certainly no genius, and for a while I thought I took the bait and was
going to get bushwhacked during River's epilogue, especially with the way
people have been gushing over the film the last few weeks. But it was just
a regular old epilogue, following the inevitable ending. Actually,
"regular" doesn't really describe the epilogue very well at all. 100% crap
is a little more appropriate. There's almost a light, happy feel to it,
which is just bizarre considering how frigging dark the rest of the film
is - so dark, in fact, that they had to name its only black character
(Laurence Fishburne, The Matrix Reloaded) "Whitey."
Eastwood's direction is, as it has been since the back-to-back wonderment of
Unforgiven and the painfully overlooked A Perfect World, all over the map.
Some touches are quite effective, while others cause you to roll your eyes
in the direction of your Timex. If there's one thing you can count on from
Eastwood, it's making a picture that seems a lot longer than it really is.
I'm not too sure that's a great quality to have when it comes to filmmaking.
Sex, maybe...filmmaking, never. It's kind of a backhanded compliment when
people say River is his best film in years, especially when you consider
those years included Absolute Power and True Crime. Lehane's book is
adapted by Brian Helgeland, who did the same for Eastwood's Blood Work, and
whose The Order was in theatres for fewer days than Gigli.
Luckily, Eastwood is bailed out by some very strong acting. Notice I said
"some," as the performances aren't quite as across-the-board wonderful as
you may have been led to believe. The highlight is Penn, who does enough
raging to get Oscar's attention (though he'll be competing with himself, as
Penn plays a very similar role in the upcoming 21 Grams). Laura Linney (The
Life of David Gale), who plays Jimmy's cousin, perpetrates what might be the
most irritating accent of 2003, but at least her performance isn't as
transparent as Robbins. Or perhaps it just seems transparent when in such
close proximity to Penn, who is now officially the best actor of his
generation.
2:17 - R for language and violence
==========
X-RAMR-ID: 36024
X-Language: en
X-RT-ReviewID: 1206988
X-RT-TitleID: 1126042
X-RT-SourceID: 595
X-RT-AuthorID: 1146
X-RT-RatingText: 7/10 |
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