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MINI MOVIE REVIEW:
"Mystic River" is a MASTERPIECE! A gritty, urban East Coast film noir done to perfection!
This movie makes a quiet statement in a matter-of-fact way with great power and truth. It truly deserves to receive multiple
Oscar nominations. (See my suggestions below.)
Simply put, "Mystic River" is the best American movie I have seen so far this year. This movie is guaranteed
to be on my "Top 10 Movies List for 2003."
This is a powerful, searing portrait of urban life in the underbelly of a shabby section of Boston near the Mystic River
in its story about three children who are forever bonded together by an unspeakable crime committed against one of them.
Since this random act occurred in a "Russian roulette" type situation where any one of the three could have
been the victim of a kidnaping for the grotesque purpose of satisfying a depraved pedophiliac, the other two are left with
deep feelings of guilt at having dodged the bullet while their friend, the victim, is left a shattered person with a lost
childhood and his own feelings of guilt as to why he was chosen and not one of the others.
Now all three are adults in varying stages of recovery from this macabre incident and all are still living in or near
the same shabby section of downtown Boston. When the daughter of one is found brutally murdered, suspicion naturally falls
on the victim of that pedophile, still a shattered man. This luckless man also seems to have a dark secret of his own to hide,
a violent act that may, or may not, have been committed the very same evening that the young girl lost her life.
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MOVIE CRITIQUE:
I don't often award an A+ to an American (Hollywood) movie. In fact, I have only given two Hollywood movies this rating
during the last two years: the masterful "Insomnia" and the equally fine "The Quiet American." Both movies
were released in 2002 and I am sorry to say that I have seen nothing this year to date from a mainstream Hollywood studio
that warrants this exalted rating.
Hollywood, supposedly the movie capital of the world, usually just doesn't get it. Too many money men and marketing men
there to spoil the creative broth. They would rather make money than make it right. "Mystic River" is the first
mainstream studio movie in 2003 to deserve an A+ rating, and we have Clint Eastwood as the director and the motivating creative
force to thank for this.
I shudder to think of what this movie might have been if someone without Clint Eastwood's power had directed it. Eastwood
even had to fight to film the movie on location in Boston, for heaven's sake. That locale infuses this film with an atmosphere
that is indelible. This grittiness of this film could not have been replicated anywhere else.
Great credit also has to be given to Brian Helgeland for a screenplay that is absolutely first rate. The dialogue, often
quite spare and circuitous, serves to illuminate quite beautifully the personalities involved. They quickly become real people
living in a moment of real time and in real lives.
Among other movies to his credit, Helgeland also wrote the screenplay for "L. A. Confidential"(1997), another
masterpiece and the finest film noir since "Chinatown"(1974). There are enough noir-ish elements to "Mystic
River" to call it an "East Coast film noir," a movie with character and cinematic proclivities distinctly different
from the West Coast, the locale of most film noirs, but this movie is a true film noir nonetheless.
“Mystic River" is a bravura performance of the classic American film noir art form from start to finish
and Oscar nominations should rain down upon this movie like a summer storm. Clint Eastwood should receive a Best Director
nomination for his masterful, though leisurely, direction. And Brian Helgeland should receive a nomination for his Best Adaptive
Screenplay from the novel written by Dennis Lehane.
A Best Actor nomination should go to Sean Penn for his searing performance as Jimmy Markham, an ex con and the father
of the murdered daughter. Another Best Actor nomination should go to Tim Robbins as a man forever tortured by the memories
of his being horribly abused as a child.
A Best Supporting Actress nomination is deserved by Marcia Gay Harden for her role as Tim Robbin's wife, a woman who loves
her husband but also finds it hard to believe him when he protests his innocence. And perhaps also a Best Supporting Actress
nomination is deserved for Laura Linney in her small role as a wife who remains fiercely loyal to her husband, Jimmy Markham,
no matter what.
This is to take nothing away from Kevin Bacon and Laurence Fishburne, both of whom play their roles as the investigative
policemen to the professional hilt. In short, every role in this movie is perfectly cast and brilliantly played.
Clint Eastwood is at the top of his game in the direction of this movie and the actors who star in it, each of whom give
the performances of their lifetime. Though the movie runs a little long at 2 hours and 17 minutes, I have seen many shorter
movies that seemed like they were much longer.
Throughout this movie and even after it was over, I had a feeling of awe that I was seeing something truly special. This
feeling does not happen very often but I sure am grateful when it does. This is, after all, what the best of cinema is all
about: those all too rare moments when you are witness to a gem of a film. It makes for a wonderful discovery and a wonderful
experience at the movies.
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MOVIE SYNOPSIS:
Three young boys, all the best of friends, are playing stick hockey on a side street in a gritty area of Boston near the
port facilities on the Mystic River. As is so often the case with street games like this, the gutter drain finally sucks up
the last of their hockey balls and they are now left with nothing to do.
Wandering around without much purpose, they spy a drying section of concrete and they all decide to write their names
on the still wet cement so that their names will be preserved "forever." Jimmy Markham and Sean Devine finish their
names first. Dave Boyle is just starting to write down his name when a car door opens across the street and a large man steps
out with handcuffs and what looks like a badge strapped to his belt. This gives him a presumed air of authority, and he starts
badgering the kids about their "destruction of municipal property."
Silent and even a little surly at first, the three kids are soon cowering in fear. The man decides to make an example
of one of the boys, so he grabs David Boyle and tells him that he is going to bring him downtown to the police station and
call his mother. Boyle is thrown in the back of the car and their last view of each other is of him gazing wistfully out of
the rear window of that sedan. Meanwhile, the other man in the front seat of the car, a quiet man with a large cross prominently
displayed on one of his rings suggesting that he might be a member of the clergy, turns around and looks at David Boyle with
friendly delight.
The parents of the kids, many of whom have had prior brushes with the law, realize that this is not orthodox police procedure
and a search party for David is quickly organized. Nothing happens for four long days until Boyle, who had been kept locked
in the basement of a deserted house, finally escapes his captors and flees for home.
All three boys are now grown men. They have not been close since that horrible day.
Jimmy Markham (Sean Penn) runs a small mini mart on the corner that may or may not be a front for some illegal smuggling
activity, untaxed cigarettes, perhaps. Someone had ratted on him sixteen years before and he ended up spending two years in
prison. The ratting was not the only thing that made him an angry, bitter man, though, as his first wife died while he was
in prison and he was not able to be there to comfort her. Now he skirts the edges of the law with numerous black tattoos covering
his body to remind everyone of his past as a prisoner.
He is once again married, this time to Annabeth (Laura Linney), a devoted wife who has born him two more daughters after
the one that was left after her mother died. The older daughter is now nineteen while the younger girls are eleven and eight
in age. The nineteen year old, Katie (Emmy Rossum), remains his favorite, perhaps because she is older, but also maybe because
she is all that he has left of his first wife. Annabeth has to remind him not to dote so much on her as the younger girls
need their father's love and attention as well. This especially goes for the eleven year old, who is experiencing her first
communion at church tomorrow.
A classmate of his older daughter, Brendan Harris, (Tom Guiry), comes into the mini mart with his younger brother, who
is a deaf mute. They converse animatedly by signing. Brendan is surprised not to find Katie working there, but Jimmy curtly
dismisses him in spite of his friendly nature.
Shortly thereafter Katie enters the mart to tell her dad that she is going out with her friends for the evening and won't
be home until late. She runs back out to her car, and Brendan surprises her by appearing up from the floor of the back seat
where he was hiding. They kiss amorously and promise to meet each other later.
Brendan asks Katie why her dad seems to dislike him so much, and she replies that she doesn't know. This is pretty much
the answer to that same question that the other mini mart employee gets when he asks Jimmy, adding that Brendan seems like
such a nice kid. Jimmy refuses to talk about it, but it is obvious that there is a history of bad blood there for some unknown
reason.
David Boyle also still lives in the old neighborhood not far from the Markham house. He has married a lovely woman, Celeste
(Marcia Gay Harden), who is as devoted to her husband as Annabeth, but is scared by his frequent bouts of moodiness and depression.
She has the nervous look of someone who lives next to a keg of dynamite, never knowing when it might blow up. Celeste is related
to Jimmy by way of two street toughs, Val and Nick Savage (Kevin Chapman and Adam Nelson), so they are all almost like family
as they are related by blood.
It is not made clear what David Boyle does for a living, and the same goes for the two Savage brothers, both of whom consider
Jimmy to be their godfather of sorts and thus are always available to do his bidding.
Saturday night comes and goes and Jimmy wakes up at home on a sunny Sunday morning, the morning of his middle daughter's
first communion. He goes to Katie's room to make sure that she has left for her work shift at his store, and is disturbed
to see that her bed does not look like it has been slept in. Upon inquiry, the mart assistant tells Jimmy that he wishes Katie
had been there as he is overwhelmed by all the after church Sunday business.
Jimmy's concern turns to black rage and fear when Katie's car is discovered unoccupied at Pen Park, a nearby park and
playground for the area's inhabitants. Blood is discovered on the front seat but Katie is nowhere to be found. Police are
quickly called and they cordon off the area. The local television stations are not far behind and suddenly the news is filled
with stories about this poor missing girl.
Sean Devine (Kevin Bacon), the third member of the trio, has done the most to get away from their shared sordid past and
the psychological chains of being associated with Boyle's kidnaping and rape. He does not live in the area, but is now a homicide
detective who works the Mystic River beat with his partner, Whitey Powers (Laurence Fishburne). He has a wife who has either
left him or been pushed away by him and is now so damaged that all she can do is call him on his cell phone without ever being
able to say anything. Sean goes through the routine as he knows exactly who is calling. He still holds out faint hope that
they might somehow be able to reconcile in spite of all evidence to the contrary.
A police search eventually turns up Katie's body lying half buried in the underbrush of an old well basin in the park.
In a blind rage, Jimmy has to be held back by half a dozen policemen. He later demands to see the body of his daughter in
the morgue when he brings over a dress for her body to be placed in for her funeral. He stares in silence at her once again
beautifully made up face and he wants to hug her and smother her in kisses, but he realizes that this is no longer possible.
Her body is there but Katie isn't.
Dave Boyle has problems of his own. He is at a local bar with a friend when Katie and two of her friends, obviously drunk
and in high spirits, come into the bar late on that Saturday night and surprise the patrons by dancing together on top of
the bar. Much later that night he comes home to a very worried Celeste with a bashed hand and sporting a shirt and jacket
both soaked in blood. He tells her that he was mugged on the way to his car and is afraid that he might have killed the man
in self-defense.
Dave later changes his story about how his hand got mangled when he is interviewed by Whitey and Sean. Meanwhile, Celeste
remains glued to the television set waiting to hear something about that guy who was supposedly killed, but it is only the
circumstances surrounding Katie's death that fills the local newscasts. She loves Dave and wants to believe his story, but
without any corroborating evidence she has trouble avoiding the seemingly obvious link of his suspicious activity on the very
same night that Katie was murdered.
Whitey Powers isn't for a moment fooled by Dave's alibi for his mangled hand. He is also convinced that his injury is
a possible link to Katie's murder, especially since Boyle was one of the last people to see her alive. His hope is that this
link will be discovered upon further investigation.
Sean Devine, his partner in homicide investigations but his superior as an officer and a college graduate, feels instead
that there might be a link between a bullet found in the car and a robbery committed many years before at a liquor store.
The markings match, but the gun, originally owned by Brendan Harris' dad, is nowhere to be found.
Furthermore, this link is highly tenuous as Harris' dad had deserted his family more than a decade before and has not
been seen since. Whitey voices his suspicions, quickly disclaimed by Sean, that his involvement with all the principles in
the case just might be clouding his judgment.
Then the two homicide detectives find out that Jimmy Markham has sent the two Savage brothers out to investigate all the
potential suspects in the case, and now the race is on for Sean and Whitey to find the perpetrator before Jimmy finds him
and metes out his own manner of street justice.
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