Clint goes for law 'n order

Rating: Null/10 (12 February 2004)

A chillingly well-told tale from Clint Eastwood and some fine actors, with no concession to sentimentality. I can just imagine the studio executives going `hey Clint, you're going to depress the audience' and Clint replying `that's the idea, bub. The plot concerns three youngsters growing up in working-class Boston (south side?). The life of one of them, Dave (Tim Robbins), is irrevocably changed after he is kidnapped and held for a few days by two very nasty child molesters. As adults the three become involved again in the course of a murder investigation headed up by another of the three, Sean (Kevin Bacon) in the territory of the third, Jimmy (Sean Penn).
The film takes a very strong stand against paedophilia and also, interestingly, vigilante justice. In the end justice is not done in a situation where it could have been. After all those films in which the (relatively) good guy took justice into his own hands, Ol' Clint is now saying `support your local sheriff.' Perhaps his spell in elected office (Mayor of Carmel, California) has had something to do with this.
The acting is fine, particularly Sean Penn as Jimmy the local storekeeper/hoodlum who has a complex range of emotions to go through. Tim Robbins as Dave came over as a shellshock victim but Kevin Bacon was excellent as Sean the persistent, if not perfect, detective. There are also fine supporting performances from Marcis Gay Harden as Tim's wife and Laurence Fishburne as Sean' sceptical sidekick (though anyone as sceptical as he was wouldn't last long as a sidekick).
The atmosphere, helped a lot by the locations, was suitably gloomy and gritty, and Clint has used a few of his signature devices such as the camera going for a brief roam over the landscape (and harbour scape) in between scenes. It's not a happy story, but it is a gripping one  anti-Hollywood but with box office appeal. I guess once you get to Clint's age with his experience you might as well follow your instincts about what works in a movie. The execs can go sell the ice creams.