Bogus 'tragedy'

Rating: 1/10 (3 November 2003)

**SPOILER**
Mystic River is being accepted in the U.S. as a serious, tragic tale of the terrible consequences of violence and abuse.
What it really is, is a manipulative revenge tale about the sensitive inner life of a vigilante murderer.
I was appalled by Laura Linney's big scene at the end where she praises the murderer for his kinglike qualities. I think it's in there not so much for its ironic 'Lady Macbeth' horror, as for its balancing effect on all those moviegoers who actually agree with her and see the Sean Penn character as flawed but heroic: a kinder, gentler Dirty Harry. There's a reason why the film makers eliminated a crucial moment from the book: In the book, the Kevin Bacon character promises the Marcia Gay Harden character that he will prove that the Sean Penn character committed murder and that he will prosecute him for it. Instead, Eastwood plays it cozy, leaving the legal consequences of the vigilantism ambiguous, just in case his core audience happens to think that what Sean Penn's character did was wrong, maybe, but understandable and justified. And after all, who got hurt? Just some loser pervert, right? Or as the film describes him, "damaged goods".
What a load of horse manure.