Near perfect directing and perfect acting

Rating: 8/10 (18 April 2015)

Since the beginning of movies it has not been hard to find a straight forward cop narrative that pins childhood friends on opposite sides of the law. Most of them age the same way, after they are taken out of the theater they kind of melt into the background. That is how Mystic River should have aged but why hasn't it? It could be the fantastic acting by Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, and Kevin Bacon. But thats not it, there is good acting in bad movies all the time. The thing that separates this movie from a boring cop drama is the directing. This was not his first feature film he directed, but it is one of his best. With the intertwining story lines, the focus of the movie never changed and the pacing was perfect for the subject matter. But was this a perfect movie? Absolutely not. F or the first hour and forty five minutes are a fantastic "who done it?" as we try to uncover the truth before the cops do. The final ten or fifteen minutes take the film down from an A to a B. The film has themes of realism, family, and friendship loyalties. And the end of this film shows you who's loyalties are stronger than others.
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