Mystic River
Mystic River is Clint Eastwood's return to serious filmmaking after such Hollywood blunders such as True Crime and Bloodwork. The Oscar wining director of Unforgiven returns solely behind the camera for the first time since Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil for this adaptation of Dennis Lehane's novel of the same name. The screenplay by Brian Helgeland the same writer of L.A. Confidential brings together the story of three childhood friends that are reunited after the death of the friends daughters.
The casting of Mystic River is the strongest part of the film. Where most films of this theme would use lesser known names, Clint Eastwood successfully cast high profile actors such as Sean Penn (Jimmy Markum), Tim Robbins (Dave Boyle), Kevin Bacon (Sean Divine) as the childhood friends and Laurence Fishburne (Whitney Powers) as Kevin Bacons police partner. Mystic River begins 30 years earlier where we find out the scarring crime that occurs to one of the three friends and then proceeds to modern day to reunite the three friends. Bacon is now a homicide detective in for the Massecusettes state police, Robbins is a town drifter and Penn is the owner of a town variety store. When the death of Penn's older daughter occurs the three friends are brought back into the picture as we begin to find out about each character. Sean Penn who has been nominated for his fourth Academy Award is very strong in the lead role and Tim Robbins is also equally impressive in a supporting role that has him nominated for this years Oscars.
Mystic River is a dark and moody film that never slows down and is well paced even though the film runs 137 minutes. There is strong character development as this is Eastwood best work with actors of this level. We as the audience find out exactly what we need to know about the main character in that Bacon is suffering from a failing marriage, Penn was a young criminal and Robbins is a man that is emotionally scarred since childhood. The screenplay keeps your interest as you are never quite sure of how the film will eventually conclude. Mystic River is Clint Eastwood's 24th film and second Oscar nomination for Best Director. Will Eastwood win a second time? I am not sure because there are few elements of Mystic River that might hold it back. First off, Mystic River fails in two scenes near the conclusion of the film, for most of the film we see certain characters a specific way but near the end of the film, Eastwood changes the dynamics of two of the main characters just slightly, apparently Eastwood is following the novel in the way it was written but sometimes aspects of the novel need to be changed when brought to the big screen. The second problem with Mystic River is that the story is slightly manipulated near the climax of the film, Eastwood clearly is trying to put together a more murder mystery than a serious drama and that slight flaw could hold it back from winning the Academy Award for Best Picture this year.
Mystic River has been nominated for 6 Academy Award this year including Best Picture, Director, Actor in leading role for Sean Penn, Actor in a supporting role for Tim Robbins, Actress in a supporting role for Marcia Gay Harden and Best Writing Based on previous written material. Will Mystic River win any awards remains to be seen. Out of the five nominated films this year, Lost in Translation was by far the most original and well made film this year and Lost in Translation would of gone nowhere without the performance and direction of Sofia Coppola. It does seem possible that Mystic River could pick up Oscars for Tim Robbins and Marcia Gay Harden but Lord of the Rings: Return of the King seems the most likely candidate for best writing based on previously written material.
Aside from some of the problems of Mystic River I highly recommend this film for the reason that it is well made and the performances are very strong. The screenplay does seem a little manipulated but it still keeps right until the final scene. In conclusion, Clint Eastwood is one of Hollywood's best director's even though he does make a few odd choices in True Crime and Bloodwork and Eastwood has brought to life some of the best work from Sean Penn, Tim Robbins and even Kevin Bacon.
A Warner Bros Release.
