| Mystic River | | Cast : | Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Kevin Bacon, Laurence Fishburne, Laura Linney, Emmy Rossum | | Director : | Clint Eastwood | | Studio : | Warner Home Video | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen, Surround Sound | | Released Date : | October 15, 2003 | | DVD Released Date : | September 14, 2004 | | Language : | English (Dubbed), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Subtitled) | | Audience Rating : | R (Restricted) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | August 03, 2005 | | Summary | Mystic Movie | Content
 | This is a surprisingly engrossing film that has the detective-whodunit kind of film but also a great character study film. The movie succeeded on both levels. The psychology/emotions aspect of the film as well as the plot/story are both enganging.
The movie opened with the childhood incident that changed the lives of three friends (Penn, Robbins, Bacon). Robbins was sexually abused by men who posed as policemen. It was symbolically shown in a haunting car ride that was especially significant to the three boys in that Robbins was there and the other two were not. They lost touch as adults but the murder of Penn's daughter brought them together again with Bacon as the cop investigating the case and Robbins as a witness turned suspect. All of them were still obviously haunted by their childhood experience. One character said that it felt like all three of them were in THAT CAR.
I love the structure of the screenplay. It's elegant, intelligent, stylish, and profound. It was able to gradually build the momentum for a big climax in the end by revealing little information as the movie plays. The viewers rely primarily on speculation whether the Tim Robbins character killed Sean Penn's daughter. But in the end the screenplay gave us a satisfying answer that made sense to the setup.
This is a modern masterpiece that is truly entertaining.
Grade: A |
| Rating | | | Date | July 29, 2005 | | Summary | One of the sixteen silliest movies ever | Content
| Like a bad episode of Law and Order, this pretentious movie flies its artsy urgency with the kind of solemnity that makes it painful to watch.
I remember sitting through improvisations in high school and college drama classes where two boys would adopt accents and do a lot of cursing and bitter emoting as they worked themselves up to some kind of pathetic confrontation/revelation (all the time imagining that this was "real" and "true" and "art" because they were cursing and emoting); Eastwood's little crime melodrama has that same painful self-consciousness about it. It feels like a bunch of unprepared actors standing around working themselves up to something they hope will startle the audience.
It is a sadly unworthy film --in almost every way. |
| Rating | | | Date | July 19, 2005 | | Summary | A cold, implausible ending. Tim Robbins was great, though! | Content
| PLUSES: Tim Robbins throroughly deserved his Oscar as this was the best character and on screen performance of his career. The movie was 130 minutes and for 120 minutes it was riveting, emotional, AND had you on the edge of your seat. I was fully enthralled with all the characters and the plot development. All the performances were excellent (with the exception of Laura Linney -- see minuses) and it was a great cast. I liked Laurence Fishburne's portrayal, as he was the extreme opposite of Kevin Bacon, being the unbiased, hard nosed cop, while Bacon had emotional ties to the case and his old friends to deal with. Sean Penn was superb, but I'm not sure about him being Oscar worthy.
MINUSES: Laura Linney's Boston accident was horrible!! Also, in my opinion, her character turned out to be the coldest of the entire movie. Her speech and scene with Penn at the end was utterly unwatchable, disgusting, and revolting! The 120 great minutes of this movie was rolling along and going to be in my top 50 movies of all time. Then I got to this scene and the movie went to not even making my top 500 list. This scene, her character, and her performance were all UTTERLY UNFATHOMABLE!!! Highly unbelievable and contrived! The rest of the movie kind of fell apart in a bad way after that scene, and never recovered. The amount of cold people and cover-ups (7 people involved??) that happened in the last few minutes was completely implausible.
Boom, then it's over. Recommended, but not one to cherish, re-watch, or keep in your collection. |
| Rating | | | Date | July 10, 2005 | | Summary | Great acting, average story | Content
| This is movie was very average to me, and very overrated. The acting was great, but the problem is, these actors are acting in a film with a bad story. It's not a horrible movie, but it has it's flaws. For example, the ending was not satisfying at all (partly because of who the culprits turned out to be), and there was too many issues left unresolved.
I can't give this film less than 3 stars because it wasn't BAD, but then again I can't give it 4 or 5 stars because it wasn't very GOOD. It was simply average. |
| Rating | | | Date | July 09, 2005 | | Summary | Superb acting | Content
| To be honest, I had higher expectations. I haven't read the book and I cannot compare it to the screenplay. However, I thought that the film lacked in continuity, it would fall apart at times. Pacing was another thing that, in my opinion, suffered. Nothing remarkable with the cinematography either.
Well, what came through though was undoubtedly the professionalism of the "all-star" cast (Bacon, Gay Harden, Linney). Penn delivered an incredible performance, yet sometimes he tended to overact. Robbins, who totally managed to capture his character, took my breath away with his powerful playing.
Overall, I would recommend this film more to aspiring actors who could learn a-plenty from the aces of the profession. |
|
|
|
|
