Clint's back on top in movie making

Rating: 10/10 (28 June 2004)

spoilers.. Clint Eastwood has been failing a lot lately, making rubbish movies like BLOOD WORK and TRUE CRIME. Here he leaves the scene open for brilliant actors, something leaving the movie open for as said, the actors!
MYSTIC RIVER is based on the book, the novel written to the film is off course based on the book, this leaving Clint alone to make this movie. And it seems; like he has only followed the novel. A lots of the deep character info is gone, something that probably left a lots of the book-readers a bit frustrated.
The story is fabulous and very interesting. Driven apart cause of a mental tragedy, the three buddies Sean, Jimmy and Dave leave still in the same neighbourhood, but has lost a lots of the contact from when they were kids. Sean has become a police detective, with bigtime problems with his wife, calling him every day not saying anything. Jimmy has a small shop but has been to prison and is still running the local areas with a small-time gangster league. And Dave, is very mentally disturbed after the kidnapping that happened to him. When Jimmy's daughter dies in a mysterious way, detective Sean is on the case while suspicion is put on Dave cause of odd behaviour.
Sean Penn is absolutely amazing, but so is Robbins and Bacon, all performing great in every level. The movie is very gripping, and keeps always the feelings focused and this makes the movie very emotionelly correct for the characters situation. Penn's Jimmy that's totally messed up cause of his daughter Katie's death gets so deep into you that you wanna cry with him. MYSTIC RIVER brings Clint back on the top of movie making, because here he simply delivers everything you want. The great acting is very much of the movie's fascination, and not to forget Laurence Fishburne and Laura Linney, also doing absolutely great character performances! The movie is never purely exciting, but it's very dramatic and very interesting and kept me easily for the whole 2 hours and 10 minutes it rolls. The dialogs works brilliant, and this off course lots of the book's and actor's reasons, but the pure essence in this movie lays in the true mystique of it. Brilliant movie. STARS: 5/5