Mystic River (2003)

Mystic River (2003)

10/10

Starring

Sean Penn

Tim Robbins

Kevin Bacon

Directed by Clint Eastwood

Mystic River is a masterpiece, one which Clint Eastwood made sure that after watching you will feel messed up and elevated at the same time. The thing that catches you is the acting proficiency of the principal actors; they took their time to study their characters, with Tim Robbins to me, being the most effective of them all.

Eastwood directorial prowess is showcased in this flick; he takes you on a Journey of social decadence, the pains of betrayal and the unlikely implication of child molestation.

Mystic River was shot in Boston, and it is an adaptation of the 2001 novel of the same name by Dennis Lehane.

The book and movie plot is about three boys who grow up as friends in Boston, Dave (Tim Robbins), Sean (Kevin Bacon), and Jimmy (Sean Penn). While the boys were playing around in the neighbourhood street, Dave was abducted by child molesters who were pretending to be police officers.

After days of regular molestation, Dave escapes and finds his way back home, but the trauma of the molestation messed him up emotionally and mentally, making him a little unstable and hard to understand.

25 years in the future, Sean has grown to become a homicide detective, Jimmy is an ex-convict who currently runs a convenience store, and Dave has a blue collar job, still haunted by his abduction. Jimmy and Dave are related by marriage, with Dave marrying Jimmy’s sister.

Jimmy's daughter disappears one night and her body is found brutally murdered, coincidentally Dave comes home to his wife covered in blood and rattling that he fought off a mugger and "bashed his head into the concrete", and possibly killed him. Sean is then assigned to investigate the murder, and the three childhood friends meet up again.

Nominated for six Academy Awards, which Sean Penn won Best Actor and Tim Robbins won Best Supporting Actor (those were the two awards the movie went home with), making Mystic River the first film to win both awards since Ben-Hur in 1959.

The movie also won two Golden Globe Awards for Sean Penn and Tim Robbins, in the Best Actor and Best supporting Actor category. With Penn and Robbins winning many more accolades from other not so notable awardees.

Mystic River is a classic movie, that holds its own in the collation of greats, and it is one that I advise any movie lover to go buy this off the shelf. This is a DVD that you would like to tell others that you own.