Excellent crime/mystery drama

Rating: 8/10 (7 March 2004)

I haven't seen too many of Clint Eastwood's films, at least not the ones he's directed himself, but after seeing this I will probably check his other work out. The plot is great; it shows how deeply peoples actions can affect each other, even over many years, actions they thought would make little to no difference for their future. The acting is all great; Sean Penn is amazing, and the other actors are all great too, especially the actors who portray the main characters. The cinematography is great. The story is captivating, it gets your attention and keeps it, for every single scene of the movie, in it's 2 hour 15 minutes runtime. This is a great emotional drama, topped off with an exciting criminal mystery that keeps you guessing the final outcome of the movie for the entire time. I never lost interest in the movie. I doubt that it could have been a lot better, the only thing I didn't really like about it was one scene at the very end, in which a character gives a long monologue, that neither I, nor the two people I saw the movie with, could make very good sense of. Apart from that, it was nearly perfect. I'd recommend this to anyone who enjoys a good drama or an interesting criminal mystery. It's worth watching. 8/10