a cop procedural with pretensions

Rating: Null/10 (24 February 2004)

Maybe it's because Clint Eastwood has played a cop in so many movies, but the scenes that really crackle with life in "Mystic River" involve Kevin Bacon and Laurence Fishburne piecing together the murder mystery at the core of the story. Almost everything else, sad to say, is either inflated with pretensions or cut short. There are a lot of loose ends here, and while it is not the function of drama to tie up everything neatly, there should be some continuity. The scene toward the end, in which Laura Linney's character--who hasn't had much to say or do for most of the movie--suddenly morphs into a Boston-accented Lady Macbeth is a good example. It leaves you thinking, "Where did THAT come from?" It came out of nowhere, and while the closing scene (SPOILER ALERT) gives you some idea of what it leads to--that the Sean Penn character has become a small-scale Tony Soprano--it's all too typical of the sloppy construction of a movie which somehow wowed the critics.
The movie does have its moments. However, none of them involve Penn, who never allows us to forget that he's a Great Actor. Tim Robbins and Marcia Gay Harden, and some of the lesser-known supporting players, disappear into their roles, but Penn contents himself with a mannered star turn. Since he fails to make his character sympathetic--and even a thug who becomes a bereaved parent should elicit some compassion--he leaves a gaping hole in the movie's center.
Eastwood has made a great movie about a man whose violent past catches up with him and compels him back into violence to avenge a wrong. That movie was "Unforgiven," to which this one can't compare.