Not all that great; overvalued in fact

Rating: 6/10 (30 October 2010)

I saw 'Mystic River' now, which my best friend loaned me. I remember that when it came out it was a widely acclaimed and successful film but I didn't go to the cinema to watch it and I never rented it or whatsoever.
Having now watched the film, I don't get all the praise it gets. Maybe it's partially because it was directed by "Blondie" from 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly' (Clint Eastwood), perhaps it's partially because Sean Penn stars in it. I don't like this person (Sean Penn) and I think he's an overrated actor.
The first minutes were promising, with beautiful and awesome angles of sight of the town in takes place (Boston) and interesting sequences with the 3 main characters (Jimmy, Sean and Dave) as teenagers in 1977. They are neighbors, they are friends, they play hockey in a street and they decide to write their names on cement (which will remain marked there permanently). Dave is the only one who doesn't get to finish writing his name. When he has just written "DA", a car shows up and a fake man pretending to be a cop gets out, threats them for writing their names on cement and forces Dave to get in the car. Poor Dave is kept in captivity and abused by child molesters for 4 days. This traumatic experience changes him forever. You can say that he "died" from that day on.
I was hoping that the movie would show much more with these boys as teenagers, but suddenly and all too soon it literally jumps 25 years ahead, with the boys now as adults (however looking very old for their ages) but still living in the same city. Jimmy is an ex-con running a store. Dave is a blue-collar worker. Sean is a cop.
With the 3 main characters as adults, the movie eventually loses much of its interest, although it still has some lovely vistas of Boston. This is a very real story and very current, with much of "human" on it.
Big part of the film is about the mystery behind the homicide of Jimmy's 19 year old daughter. There are a few suspects, but it's not until the very ending that the case is solved. The true criminals are 2 boys I would have never suspected.
The worst thing about this movie is that Dave is brutally murdered by Jimmy. He was an innocent man who paid for a crime that he didn't commit. And he was an old friend of Jimmy! Jimmy had already a history of crime in his past anyway. And apparently Sean realizes what he did, but just lets him get away with it. Jimmy shows some guilt feeling, but he's not that devastated with what he did. And his wife even seems to support him after this!
Overall, a tedious film and certainly not the "masterpiece" many claim it to be.