An Imperfect World?

Rating: Null/10 (16 October 2003)

Now that the Boston Red Sox have lived up to (or down to) the notorious Curse of the Bambino for the umpteenth time, let me address this movie about people many of whom wear Red Sox caps. (In the bottom of the eighth with one out, one on and a two run lead over the Yankees, what swayed manager Grady Little to let Pedro pitch to Matsui and then Posada instead of bringing in Embree? Was it Pedro himself, or the ghost of Ruth whispering in his ear?) South Boston, or "Southie," the Irish enclave remembered for it's anti-busing riots in the 1970s and where a respected legislator had a brother who was a notorious gangster, has always been proud of it's clannish anti-authority way of life. This story focuses on three guys from Da Naybahood with common demons to be exorcised.
******** POSSIBLE SPOILERS FOLLOW *************************

At the outset we see three kids playing street hockey (the one who grows up to be Sean Penn is especially well cast) who, after losing their ball down a sewer, kill some time carving their names into some wet cement. A rough-looking mug with handcuffs dangling from his belt announces he's a cop, asks where they all live and demands that the kid who lives more than a few blocks away get into his car. Of course we modern viewers who know about sexual predators are inwardly urging the kids to run away, but director Clint Eastwood (who, I wish, would just direct from now on; I really don't want to see him get any older on-screen) puts the time and place to good use: it's BECAUSE the creep barks profanity at them that these slum kids believe he's a cop.
(Had Clint asked me, I would have suggested he not show any of the kid's captivity or abuse, to make that good ol' power of suggestion work for him. Also, did we really need one of the perverts to be wearing a crucifix? Didn't Clint already take his shot at Christianity in "A Perfect World"?)
Twenty-five or thirty years later these three fish still live in the same bowl. One became Penn, a semi-reformed small-time crook with lots of tattoos who runs a grocery store; one became Kevin Bacon, a glum State Police detective whose wife has left him; the molested kid became Tim Robbins, who doesn't seem to have a job and walks around in a kind of trance most of the time. The plot is triggered by the violent death of Penn's feisty daughter who's been dating a guy behind her father's back. I haven't read the novel upon which this movie is based, so I don't know how important the "whodunnit" aspect originally was, but here it seems almost an excuse for Eastwood to revel in the squalor of these unhappy little lives. Screenwriter Brian Helgeland is always inclined toward allegory but in his better scripts, such as "LA Confidential," there's enough quirky detail to bring it all to life; here the characters are so isolated they might as well be on stage in "Waiting for Godot": they don't watch TV, except for Robbins watching a horror movie that leads into an awkward aria about the living dead; they take no interest in world, national or local news; they don't go to Little League games or wash their cars or play bingo at church events; they just look depressed and express varying degrees of angst. The only signs of life are from a couple of local lowlifes (subtly named Savage) who made me wish they had their own movie, just as someone wrote a play about Rosencrantz and Guildenstern from "Hamlet."
Eventually the "mystery" gets resolved, but the "real" climax involves Penn's vigilante quest for his daughter's killer & even that is pretty predictable once Penn gets the notion Robbins is the killer. Eastwood's clunky handling of suspense makes even old black and white silent flicks look as slick as Brian De Palma in comparison. Credit to Eastwood for not trying to concoct a "happy ending" with "closure." It ends with the major characters watching a parade---"here we are in our little enclave with life passing us by"--- each wrapped up in his or her own concerns. Missing are the dead girl and her overwrought boyfriend, who if he had any sense followed through on his plan to leave town, with or without her...
Other than Penn chewing up the scenery and Marcia Gay Harden doing more wide-eyed horror-stricken takes than Fay Wray in her prime, all the actors do a good subtle job. Robbins in particular brings some nice dark shadings to a character who reminds us there's nothing "ennobling" about being a victim of something. The technical aspects are all fine. Director Eastwood is doggedly determined to "pace" the scenes, but I kinda admire that nowadays. The kids in the audience can get back to their frenetic video-game lives soon enough. A major treat is Laurence Fishburn as Bacon's police partner, nicknamed "Whitey." The script never addressed this apparent anomaly, which I kinda enjoyed.
Only a few quibbles: so many items of apparent plot importance that we don't get to "see," only hear discussed. "What, somebody had a gun? Somebody was sending money? What was that about Brooklyn?" ..... etc. Also the device of having Bacon's ex-wife call and say nothing, allowing him to "vent": that seemed really really really really lame.
And so to these hapless beleaguered characters and the baseball team that's broken a whole region's hearts so many times: all the best to y'all, & there's always "next year"....
But damn: Wakefield wins two games for the Sox in that series and then gives up a first-pitch homer in the bottom of the eleventh, to the kid from the Cincinnati Reds yet? Isn't that just a little too much Curse to bear?