Mystic River

[George Aar]

O.K., it's not exactly new. But it's finally out on PPV so I got to see it last night.

I gotta say, for all the hype, I was sorta disappointed. Yeah, Sean Penn was pretty convincing as a semi-reformed hoodlum and Kevin Bacon was O.K., but the story really didn't go anywhere.

If you strip away the one plot twist, it was a pretty poor murder/mystery yarn. I'd figured out who the murderer was long before it was revealed - but the reason I'd assumed for the murder wasn't it. The reason for the murder was left sorta vague and didn't make much sense to me.

And Tim Robbins was horribly miscast. I never could believe him for a minute. He just couldn't do the role properly, IMHO.

Anyway, I'd give it a marginal thumbs up, I guess. If there was nothing else on, and you HAD to watch SOMETHING. Otherwise it's a pass.

Maybe Clint should go back to doing "Dirty Harry"?

[Tom Strange]

well geo... respectfully, you're in the minority on this one I think... there's another thread around here somewhere...

yeah, the story was one of those "snippets of time" out of someone's life (not really a beginning, middle and end)... which, to me, are always kind of hard to "get into"... but I thought a good deal of the acting in this movie was excellent...

...then again I'm no talent scout...

[TheManOfa Thousand ScreenNames]

I'd have to agree with George on this one. Murder in the First was a much better movie.

[Raf]

George,

Your review sounded just like mine.

Except I thought all the acting was terrific, including Tim Robbins.

Ok, I found my review. Maybe not just the same. But still...

quote:

---

As an acting vehicle, this movie must be seen. Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Kevin Bacon, Marcia Gay Harden and Laura Linney all deliver for director Clint Eastwood.

As a murder mystery, its only flaw is that you can figure out the killer's identity almost from the first moment he/she appears on the screen. You spend your time wondering what the killer's motive was, only to find out you were wrong about the motive (but not the killer's identity).

The mystery is good, but it's the acting that carries this movie.

---

[reikilady]

The acting was really good. Tim Robbins was excellent, as was the rest of the actors. The part that made no sense to me was the wife telling Jimmy that she thought her husband did it. I thought that was pretty strange that she would go to him. Except that she wasn't all that intelligent and wasn't thinking straight.

[engine]

Some movies are much better appreciated when seen on the Big Screen or some feeling or something gets left out...this was one of them.

Not even the best Home Enter. Center can duplicate a Big Screen (movie theatre).

[Jim]

I saw it on the big screen and I couldn't stand it. I tried hard to get into it. But it was so out of my reality space, I couldn't believe it.

[outandabout]

I got really into it. Part of it was how they really got that working class New England thing down, set wise and character wise. Maybe because I was once a WOW in New Bedford, Mass. and it brought that area back for me.

And I do tend to like those brooding dramatic type movies. I went out and bought the book the day after I saw the movie and read it over the next weekend.

[excathedra]

i was disappointed

(ok so i just rented it, i'm a little slow)

[excathedra]

it reminded me of "sleepers" only that movie was excellent

[waterbuffalo]

it was a little too heavy for meeeee, i mean me.

[outandabout]

I agree about the wife telling Jimmy. She did him in.

Maybe it was to show the contrast between a totally loyal-to-a-fault wife (Jimmy's wife) and a wife who would betray her husband and endanger his life.