Mystic River: Review By slysnide

Set in Boston Massachusetts, a boy named Dave (Tim Robbins) is abducted by child molesters posing as police officers, and twenty-five years after his escape, he's an antisocial with a troubled home life. His two friends who witnessed the abduction have taken different paths as well, with Jimmy (Sean Penn) becoming a streetwise punk disguised as a caring family man, and Sean (Kevin Bacon) becoming a well to do police detective. But when Jimmy's nineteen year old daughter Katie (Emmy Rossum) turns up dead in a park, and Dave has an injured hand with blood on his clothes, the three friends are silently at each other's throats as they dance around one another to find the truth for the sake of justice, and revenge.

Sean Penn usually takes on these kind of roles in which he inhabits somewhat of a dual character, so it was no surprise that he did a great job here. But his character goes from winning the sympathy of the audience from being the annoying guy next door that won't leave you alone as the story progresses through both Sean & Whitey's (Laurence Fishburne) investigation, and Celeste's (Marcia Gay Harden) ever grim image of her suddenly awol husband Dave. Granted Jimmy is a major character in the film, he crosses the line from sympathetic father, to vigilante, to outright villain. Neither of the latter is preferred, as Jimmy seemed too offbeat from that persona early in the film to go totally awol like he does with his Dirty Harry styled, pseudo investigation with his goons, interviewing such town patrons like the local Liquor Store clerk Mr. Loonie (Eli Wallach).

Of the three stories, Jimmy's was the least enjoyable, and Sean & Whitey's lacked screen time as their scenes were being constantly overridden by Dave's quirkiness and Jimmy's lust for revenge against a phantom killer. Since Jimmy's vengeful view is constantly being shoved down our throats, then we're not prone to believe his theory about the killing, nor trust in Dave for his quirkiness. So in that sense, Eastwood did a good job at ensuring that the truth remains a genuine mystery until the suspenseful climax. But the film didn't need to be 137 minutes long, and with the slow pace to boot. For even with the 'subplot' involving Katie and her boyfriend's (Thomas Guiry) desire to elope in Vegas with his younger brother Ray (Spencer Treat Clark) acting susp*cious isn't enough to fuel the fires of suspense that such a plot requires to remain intriguing; for the dragged out film just seemed like any one of the numerous televised crime dramas, just longer.

So while the film wasn't bad, it suffers because of how long it takes to develop and end such a simple story. For even with three great characters with great acting to help balance (of whom didn't get equal screen time) it out, it sill dragged on to the point of becoming too noticeable; primarily because the characters lacked the depth required to make them interesting for a film of this runtime. Therefore, it was enjoyable, but seemed to be lacking a lot more in the scenes they already had to be a silver screen crime drama; though the realism on the whole was great. And that's who this film is for, perfectionists who hate weeknight dramas for their exaggerated takes on law enforcement. And I agree with that take, but this just wasn't cutting it for me as it couldn't escape that overly generalized summation. For realism is always great, but when you go over the top with it, then you can't always expect picture perfect results.