Now screening at your cinema nearby. Directed by Clint Eastwood this is a solid thriller, no CGI crap and not much action, in fact no action all - just story and character driven but with some great performances, in particular by Sean Penn but also the other cast. Even Kevin Bacon does a fair job.
The story revolves around 3 childhood friends who meet each other again after the daughter of one of them gets murdered.
This brings back the past which would better have been left buried …
Highly recommended if you like something different.
Lawrence Fishburn was also good. I liked the movie, as it was a character driven story rather than an action film. However, I thought the music didn’t fit in a lot of the scenes. In a few of the rather depressing or serious scenes, the music seemed way too perky. Did anybody else feel that?
yeah music was a bit odd in places…clint is a big jazz man so he gave the score to i think terence blanchard…prolly should have gone with one of the bigger names…i thought tim robbins was the standout…sean penn just did his usual rage…but robbins performance was a triumph of inner torment
I guess I have to voice the lone dissenting opinion. I was quite disappointed with the movie. While I think the superb cast turned in an excellent performance, I can’t say the same about the direction or the writing. The pacing was off, and there was no tension. It is possible that the music was part of the reason for that, I suppose. The last few minutes of the movie seemed like a last minute edition, as if they just could not decide when to end the movie.
Mystic River is now back in the cinemas for a second run due to the Oscar nominations it has received. Don’t miss it this time.
:!: Spoiler
Penn’s performance was phenomenal. I loved how one is transformed from feeling deep sympathy and compassion for this man to a strong loathing for a vengeful coldblooded murderer. Also loved the juxtaposition of the diametrically opposite behavior of the two wives; one betrays her husband by telling Penn’s character that she thinks her husband killed the daughter, while Penn’s wife stands by her man even after hearing Penn’s confession of the murder.
I enjoyed it, but that’s about as far as I’ll go - I found several of the performances too over the top for me ‘look ma, I’m acting’ - Penn, Robbins’ wife, Penn’s wife (afraid I don’t know their names!) I thought Robbins was good, and Bacon is always nicely low-key.
I appreciated the approach of a quality drama, but the story just missed the mark for me. In the end, I didn’t buy the series of coincidences that led to the finale. And the final scene confused me - I took it to mean that Penn was going to get off scot-free, whereas I’ve read that it was actually an indicator that Bacon fully intended to “get him” eventually. Liked the idea of it ending with the two of them standing in the road much more than the actual ending.
