Disappointingly tedious

Rating: Null/10 (29 September 2004)

I really wanted to like this film, but the truth is I found it tedious and overwrought. Both Sean Penn and Tim Robbins grated on my nerves as they played their scenes in uber-soap opera style, alternately mugging, glowering and preening before the camera. I think both performances lack the subtlety of some of their previous works. For instance, Penn in "Dead Man Walking" (directed by Robbins) and Robbins in "Shawshank Redemption." I found Kevin Bacon to be marginally better than his co-stars and I thought Marcia Gay Harden's performance was uniformly excellent and faultless. Eastwood's directorial style I found to be drab and the story itself highly unoriginal.
I left the theatre feeling very disappointed and somewhat depressed, as the characters in this film are the type of people I'd want to avoid at all costs in real life and the sordid, ugly story nothing I'd ever want to experience.