The efficiency of a tough judge and a small jury.

Rating: Null/10 (7 December 2004)

'Mystic River' is a movie not to be missed because of the performances of the lead actors, namely Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, and to a lesser degree Kevin Bacon. The ladies are also good, but their roles are supporting and not critical. I thought Linney handled her role with much more subtlety and believability than did Harden. My main reaction to the movie overall is 'atmospheric'. The viewer is always aware of the mood, and it is filmed almost without color. Black, whites, muted grays, blues, and browns predominate. I don't recall seeing any bright colors at all, except maybe for a store sign or two. The story involves a murder and the investigation to solve it. Here the "process" has much more impact than the final result. The movie has lots of realistic but foul language, but no nudity and very little violence. The tough decisions we have to make!
SPOILERS FOLLOW, please proceed with caution. The story begins in an Irish Boston neighborhood, maybe 25 years earlier, three 11-year-old friends are playing street hockey and, led by Jimmy, begin to write their names in fresh concrete. Two men posing as cops show up, talk Dave into getting in their car, he is held captive in a cellar for four days, molested by the men, until he escapes but is never the same. As grown men with families, Sean (Bacon) has become the police investigator, Jimmy (Penn) as an ex-con runs a corner store, Dave (Robbins) is a handyman and his brooding demeanor is certainly a tie to his molestation as a young boy of 11. Jimmy's daughter Katie turns up murdered, Jimmy gets his own thug friends to help "investigate", while Sean and his partner, Whitey, set out to solve the crime. Dave becomes a suspect because he comes home late the same night, cut and bloody, claiming to have been in an altercation with a mugger. In the end we see Jimmy getting a tip from Dave's wife, she thinks he is the killer, Jimmy as the judge and his two thugs as the jury, knife and shoot Dave at the Mystic riverbank and dump his body. "A king has to do whatever it takes to protect his family." But the next day he finds that the murder was caused by two kids playing with a gun, accidentally shooting Katie, then chasing and killing her to silence her.