A big-budget "Movie of the Week"

Rating: 1/10 (17 November 2003)

If 'Mystic River' is this year's leading Oscar contender, cinema is in deep trouble. Simply put, there is nothing in this film that you don't see in your typical NBC "Movie of the Week." It's that generic.
This is one of those movies that thinks it's more important than it really is. The problems don't lay in the direction, but the writing. This small-community-murder-mystery story is something we've seen 100,000 times over. Every plot point you can see coming miles away. The characters are all over-emotional Lifetime TV cardboard cut-outs. And the dialogue? It only exists to spoon-feed the film's subtext to the audience ("Sometimes I think all three of us got in that car" Oy.)
So why does material this cliched attract such an A-list cast? Easy. Because such emotionally-charged (yet under-developed) characters give these actors the spotlight. It's an ego-trip. Nothing more.
Just because a film tells a tragic story, doesn't make it subversive or Shakespearean. Sorry, but I'm not fooled by this.