Good film with interesting plot, but with flaws and bad performances

Rating: 6/10 (31 January 2009)

Most actors are unknown (at least to me), and they are NOT good enough. The acting of all the kids is AWFUL!, especially so the most crucial character of all, that has to do with the disclosure of the mystery. (There are lots of great kid-actors all over TV, how come they were not casted and hired?!) Jolie's performance is not good, though not dreadfully bad. All characters are poorly depicted and cartoonized, and in a simply unbearable fashion the doctor at the Psychiatric Hospital! (and that is, unfortunately, Eastwood's responsibility.) The film is well paced, well directed, well photographed, as should be expected from any good director such as Clint Eastwood is. However, somehow he does not convey the proper tension and terror in those moments that the script required such elements (I felt the same in "Mystic River"). I did pick the line that includes a word for a certain type of felony only coined decades later than the one portrayed by the film (the 30s), and it puzzled me as a flaw by the writer.
I am a pro composer/arranger/producer/pianist from Paraguay (jazz-oriented), and knew right away from the first piano notes that that was Clint's musical statement. Very simple, somewhat corny, but effective melancholy-wise. Great composer-arranger Lenny Niehaus did not need to sweat too much throughout this movie. All in all: