Which one of them fools said Clint Eastwood was washed-up? Mystic River, Eastwood's adaptation of Dennis Lehane's novel, is somber and mesmerizing. It touches you in all the right spots, leaving you exhausted from its sheer precision. It's the kind of satisfaction you wish you could experience on every night out.
Mystic is both brutal and empathetic, as it explores the tragedies of a working-class Boston neighborhood. It's a compassionate testosterone boost, populated by characters that alternately inspire disgust and admiration.
The film revisits a vile incident in the lives of former childhood friends: Jimmy (Sean Penn), Sean (Kevin Bacon), and Dave (Tim Robbins). Their friendship has not endured, but the dour residue of the past clings to all three. When Jimmy's beautiful daughter is found murdered, Sean, a Boston cop, is assigned to the case. Dave is a witness with a shaky alibi, and both men are confronted with Jimmy's grief.
Penn gives the performance of his career as a vindictive ex-con turned family man, with a soft side that can't quite save him. He's regal in a mixture of anger, agony and leather-jacketed, faux-tattooed anguish.
This role has Oscar written all over it in glow paint. The film has more going for it than Penn's heartbroken machismo, including creepy-as-a-playground-flasher Robbins and a sweet Laura Linney turned Lady Macbeth.
This is an ugly movie that's beautifully filmed; one that squeezes your heart even as it goes for the throat. Eastwood's violence inspires grief, rather than revulsion or shock. Mystic River has the momentum of a chemical reaction--misfortune seems inevitable, as though it permeates the characters and the world they inhabit.
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