A very good movie that ends badly

Rating: 5/10 (27 January 2005)

I felt that the movie was a gripping drama for two hours and then it went on for the last fifteen more minutes which pretty much ruined it for me.
The characters suddenly behaved in a manner inconsistent from how they behaved earlier in the movie. Sean Penn's character kills Tim Robbins character based on information from Marcia Gay Harden's character. Kevin Bacon, who seems to be a very honest cop and who was quite prepared to throw Tim Robbins in jail for a murder he suspects Tim committed, looks the other way when he finds out that Sean actually killed Tim. Everyone seems to treat Marcia's character with ostracism at the end for some reason. She thought her husband committed one murder and he actually committed another. She was mistaken but she was completely guiltless of anything, nobody died by her hands but everyone seemed to blame her.
Do I understand what was supposed to be depicted on the film at the end or did I miss something? An early scene that bothered me too was when Laurence Fishburne mentions that he stole Tim's car to find some evidence and then Tim is brought in for questioning. A lot of action seemed to have transpired that we weren't privy to. I thought for a minute that a reel was missing in the movie.
Without the last fifteen minutes, I probably would have given this movie an 8 or a 9. With it, it's a five at best.