Lots of Questions, Lots left out *** SPOILERS***

Rating: 7/10 (4 January 2004)

Caution... **SPOILERS**
For the last 20 years I've been working the field of Mental Health so I really looked forward to seeing Mystic River. I finally got to see it this past weekend. I found it interesting but...
1. I felt that I needed to know what happened after Dave, as a child, came back after being abducted and met his friends again. A great deal of the movie revolves around the relationship of the three boys when they become adults, but we are never shown what happens in their relationship when Dave returns. I felt that that was something that really needed to be clarified. Near the end of the movie, one says something like, "We all went into that car". Why were Dave's two friends that affected by Dave's abduction?
2. I have no idea why Dave was ever considered a suspect in the murder of the daughter of Sean Penn's character. His being sexually abused as a child would have NO connection whatsoever in a murder of a teenage girl when he is an adult. It just doesn't make sense.
3. Why didn't Dave tell his wife the truth about the murder? He told her he thought he might have KILLED someone but he came up with a convoluted story. Why? If he didn't feel comfortable sharing that he had been abused as a child with her, I still don't understand why he couldn't say that he saw a man sexually abusing a boy and he beat the man and might have killed him.
4. The movie doesn't explain how Dave got stabbed. When he sees his wife after the "murder" she takes care of a stab wound of his. When we later see him attacking the child molester, I don't recall the man having a knife and Dave pretty much beats him to death. So how did Dave get stabbed?
5. Would a child molester really have sex in a car parked outside a popular bar?
6. The two men in a car abduct Dave and hold him hostage. Two men? I found that hard to believe. When Dave is abducted, his two friends SEE both men, can DESCRIBE both, see their car, and see the car's LICENSE PLATE. Yes, the two men pretended to be cops, but if you are with your friend, and he gets picked up by the cops, I really think you are going to go to your friend's mother and let her know right away. Why didn't the boys tell Dave's parent? Why didn't the police immediately get involved?
7. Why didn't Kevin Bacon's character take himself off the investigation when he learned that it was regarding his childhood friend?
8. Sean Penn's character calmly speaks with the investigators immediately after he learns of his daughter's murder! There is NO WAY that he would be in any state of mind to speak to investigators on that day. It's just not realistic.
Clint Eastwood made a movie that is emotional but it has so many loopholes in the plot that it just didn't seem plausible.
Does the book answer the questions?