MYSTIC RIVER (2003)
5/5 stars
Date of Review: May 1st, 2004
REVIEW BY JOHN ULMER (Copyright, 2004)
It is part of our humanity to contemplate the effects of a single
event. For Jimmy, Dave and Sean, that event occurs early on in their
lives, when they are all eleven years old. Their characters are setup
from the outset: Jimmy is an adventurous kid with a love to live life
on the edge; it is his brilliant idea to take a car for a spin around
the block in their Boston community. When Jimmy grows up he spends two
years in jail for criminal activities. Meanwhile, Sean thinks stealing
the car is a bad idea. He grows up to be a cop. And then there is meek
Dave, who doesn't really have much to say about anything at all. And
when a so-called "cop" commands Dave to climb into the backseat of his
car, he does so reluctantly, never stopping to argue. The other two
kids run home to their parents and soon a search is conducted for
Dave, who escapes his captors four days after being held in a cave in
the middle of a large wood. We are left to merely imagine what occurs
within.
When the three kids grow up into adults, not much changes. Jimmy (Sean
Penn) owns a convenience store and the love of his life is his
nineteen-year-old daughter, who is brutally murdered on the weekend
she plans to run away with her boyfriend, the son of a crook who
ratted out Jimmy and sent him to jail for those two years, and whom
Jimmy sought revenge on after being let out. The close links are
deliciously ironic. It doesn't help that a plot revelation reveals
(spoilers ahead) that the handgun used to murder Jimmy's daughter was
the same gun used by Ray Harris, his betrayer, during a liquor store
shoot-out in 1984.
What follows is a grim, sometimes painful to watch, unraveling of a
mystery-thriller that actually relies upon realistic characters and
dialogue for backbones. Penn, who won a Best Actor Oscar for his
portrayal, arguably delivers the single greatest performance of his
entire career. After being nicknamed the King of the Oscar Snubs, he
finally received his comeuppance, and incidentally he deserves an
Oscar for "Mystic River" more than ever before. His performance is,
simply put, absolutely stunning. He manages to capture the essence of
a grieving father. The segment in which he arrives at the scene of the
crime has been hard for me to watch both times I've seen the film:
Penn delivers a completely convincing, almost startlingly raw outburst
that sends chills up the audience's spines. For anyone who has a loved
one, it is both haunting and stirring, and an ode to the fact that if
you hand an ensemble cast a great script and let them stand back and
do their thing, it can sometimes turn out absolutely perfect. A lot of
scenes in "Mystic River" seem as though Clint Eastwood, the director,
stood back a bit and let things unravel on their own. The chemistry
between the actors, and the frequently obvious ad-libbing, is
something that was found in many older films but is rarer nowadays.
Eastwood has rediscovered this aspect of filmmaking and I hope to see
it more often in the future.
Tim Robbins' performance is somewhat more low-key, but still stellar
in its own right. Robbins' character, Dave, changed when he was
abducted -- after his return it is not explained that his life has
never been the same, but smartly and subtly implied that something is
wrong by Eastwood, and the scene in which Dave finally snaps in front
of his wife -- who thinks he has murdered Jimmy's daughter after he
returns home the night of the crime with blood stains and a cut hand
-- is disturbing and powerful. Eastwood's gritty turn behind the
camera is especially surprising given the man. To be honest I never
thought that Eastwood was capable of making such a brutal film.
The most underrated performance is that by Kevin Bacon. Although Sean
Penn rightfully received far more recognition for his outstanding
achievement, Bacon manages to present the audience with a completely
nice cop who's trying to get to the bottom of the case without hurting
any friends in the process. What's so great about Bacon's performance,
and what I found interesting, is that he abandoned his Bad Guy image
(from "Hollow Man" to the semi-bad-kid in "Diner") and has managed to
give us all a very likable, but yet also very realistic, image of a
cop. He has played other "good guy" roles before but this is one of
his most memorable. I've found that Bacon seems most at home when he's
playing sadistic characters, and in "Mystic River," I believe it must
have been a challenge for Bacon to play a nice guy. A great actor once
said that he finds playing good guys much harder than bad guys, and
this probably relates to Bacon's performance.
The movie is led by an all-star cast, including Laurence Fishburne as
Whitey, Sean's partner, Laura Linney as Jimmy's wife, and Marcia Gay
Harden as Celeste, Dave's wife. The ending of "Mystic River" had me a
bit under whelmed the first time I saw it, and so less than
twenty-four hours later I decided to go see it again and appreciate it
even more. I came across wholly convinced that the film is one that
lives up to expectations on multiple viewings, while managing to
reveal a fair amount of small tidbits unnoticeable on first viewing.
"Mystic River" is Clint Eastwood's most recent directorial outing, far
superior to "Blood Work," capturing the same insight into American
life as "American Beauty" and containing complete, oozing remorse,
something that his Oscar-winning "Unforgiven" had plenty of. The
combination of these two primary elements is, simply put, an amazing
film, and one of the best of 2003. If you only get to see a handful of
movies from 2003, make sure to include this modern-day epic in your
list.
- John Ulmer
http://www.wiredonmovies.com
e-mail: webmaster@wiredonmovies.com
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