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From:Sean Penn , Tim Robbins , Kevin Bacon , Emmy Rossum , Laura Linney , Warner Brothers , Clint Eastwood , Warner Home Video ,
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User Rating: Amazon Sales Rank:#5068 |
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3 of 35 customers found the following review helpful:
 boring and very disturbing , 2007-01-25
mustic river is the worst eastwood movie ever well the acting is very good over all but the movie is very boring long and very disturbing it sucks .
8 of 9 customers found the following review helpful:
 A very disturbing drama, 2006-12-20
I watched this last night. This movie made me feel like I had been beaten up and left on the sidewalk to crawl home. But, I'm not saying it was a bad film. Eastwood has hit home runs in the last several outings and he has aged his talents to a finely honed formula that rarely dissappoints. I am not familiar with the book that this is based on and frankly I don't want to know: the movie was upsetting enough.
A good drama should move you, should make you feel shaken and this film delivers. The script is very good, the actors all excellent. While the film seems to linger just a wee bit too long at the end, it caps off the story without leaving anything unsaid. Having said this, it also does not tie up every single loose end; we are left to figure it out for ourselves and the ambiguity that this invokes is acceptable.
Sean Penn gives a tremendous performance that is worthy of all the accolades. Following close to him is the evocative and always disturbing impressions we see in Tim Robbins' character. The themes of this film are nasty and not for the weak of heart or constitution. While it is not pleasant these things do happen and the story is told in a believable way.
While I am a big fan of all the main actors and of Eastwoods movies in general, the depth of pain this film oozes just makes me glad I watched it once and I think I'll take a very long rain check on seeing it again; at least for quite a while. Angst like this is taken in small doses. On the other hand, acting at this level rarely happens by such a stellar cast and in such a well orchestrated manner.
6 of 7 customers found the following review helpful:
 A film about impure justice and misguided revenge, 2006-12-18
There are several outstanding features of Mystic River; the superb acting by the three male lead actors, the twisted unfolding plot, and the underlying theme of revenge and justice. I will discuss all three below.
You can not beat Sean Penn's acting in this film. He portrays a rough man of the streets, trying to hold a family together and run a business, in a working class blue-collar neighborhood. He is fully alive in this role, as protective father seeking the murderer of his elder daughter while simultaneously dealing with his intense grief. His wife, Laura Lenney, describes him best in the final minutes of the film, when she emotionally absolves him of the murder of a childhood friend he mistakenly believes killed his daughter. She evokes the Jungian archtype of the king as she tells him he is a king who protects his family and home and that he acted on the best evidence he had, even if that evidence is flawed.
Tim Robbins was amazing as the odd adult male who is still damaged by the childhood rapes he endures for 4 days at the hands of two male pediophiles. He now sees himself as a child continually trying to escape from the werewolves, which are the memories of the molestation he experienced. His oddity however marks him as a suspect for the murder of a 19 year old girl.
Kevin Bacon plays the tight competent policman, trying to control his emotions under all circumstances when we see evidence that this strategy drove his wife from him.
The story-line unfolds gradually, tragedy after tragedy, misunderstanding after misunderstanding, like a house of cards falling apart in slow motion. The interaction of the three main actors form the structure around which all the tragedy flows. Clint Eastwood paced this film very well, never rushing and never boring the audience.
Underlying the plot however is the themes of justice, revenge, and our connectedness in a web of relationships. The film asks whether justice can ever be obtained and is it right to take justice into our own hands. In this case we see two men try to take justice into their own hands, Sean Penn and Tim Robbins, and the tragedy that unfolds because of that.
However the film also displays our interconnectedness in that the dynamics of the tragedy are in the past and the tragedy continues into the future. As you watch, notice how much the murder of Just Ray by Sean Penn sets up the dynamic whereby Sean refuses to have his daughter date the son of Just Ray - a dynamic that begins the current tragedy of his daughter's death. So it is not just the molestation of Tim Robbin's character that sets the stage, it is also Sean Penn's murder of an old friend who betrays him that sets in play the death of his own daughter. On the day of her funeral, Sean Penn sits on his backporch, and addressing the trees and spirit of his daughter he says "I know that somehow I am responsible for your death, but I don't know how." The film reveals to him and to us how he was responsible.
The film does not end on happy note, for Sean Penn kills again and this time it is a damaged man, also a secret killer. In the final scenes a softball parade goes through town, the characters lock eyes, knowing that an impure justice has occurred with which they all must live and the young son of the deceased Tim Robbins, sitting on a float in his softball uniform, implies that it will cycle through again, unresolved, because justice and revenge are structures of human interaction and relationship, not absolutes.
 Solid overall film, but not spectacular by any means..., 2006-11-07
This film received generally strong reviews and the actors in it have done well over the course of their careers. So, I gave it a shot.
I wont go into the story or plot line since thats covered in a zillion places. Lets talk about the actual films execution and "unfolding". The pace was about right and I felt ample was spent on setting things up. The movie flowed well and the acting was very good...definitely above average.
I guess what was missing was that little something extra...be it plot related or some type of revelation that kicks the story into high gear. It just didnt happen. The movie just plodded along, never becoming boring, but never becoming very gripping either. Perhaps I expected a little more suspense or tension. It was just follow the murder mystery with little clues or nuances thrown in here and there but never anything exciting. And NO, I dont mean I wanted to see some M. Night Shaylaman stupid twist either! The ending, while pretty ambiguous and potentially thought provoking was a little bit of a let down, at least in my opinion. I did like how the ending left it open ended a bit and made you wonder what happened afterwards to the characters.
Overall this film is worth watching but dont expect to see some type of a masterpiece. The reason it averages about 3.5 stars at Amazon is because it is really just an average movie...worth watching but probably not worth owning or watching again.
5 of 10 customers found the following review helpful:
Depressing with no point, 2006-10-11
This is one of the worst movies I have ever seen. It's basically a movie about 3 kids who grew up together only one was emotionally scarred for life as a child. As they grow up they all go their seperate ways until another horrific event brings them all together again for one more sad, unsettling experience together. Does anyone grow or learn anything? No. Do the "bad guys" pay? No. It is difficult for me to say just how much this movie sucks without giving away the ending. Suffice to say that no one wins, innocent people get screwed over, and in the end - no one really learns anything. It's a thoroughly depressing movie with no point - unless the point is that life sucks. As if viewers don't have enough of their own problems, or as if real life isn't traumatizing enough - we are subjected to this horrible 2 1/2 hours of misery. I am not exaggerating - there is no redeeming value to this movie. Sure the acting is great, but what good is it with such a tragic story. And this is not like a Greek Tragedy or Shakespeare Tragedy - there are no heroes, no lessons to be learned, no moral to the story - it just makes you feel miserable and hollow and then nothing - just the credits rolling. This movie is so terrible that I would rather watch "Kazaam" than watch this again.
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