Eastwood sees men through a glass darkly

Rating: 8/10 (7 October 2003)

MYSTIC RIVER is full of excellent performances. Sean Penn resembles Robert DeNiro so much it makes me wonder if some Hollywood fling brought him into the world. Kevin Bacon has matured and for the first time in many years, turns in a performance that is both dark and sympathetic. Marcia Gay Harden plays haunted better than anyone, although we don't see a great deal of range from her in this film.
Tim Robbins was perhaps too obvious a choice in his role, but he delivers exactly what JACOB'S LADDER and ARLINGTON ROAD showed he could do before, so the choice can be forgiven. He chews a bit of scenery, but always when it's called for.
The film is worth seeing for the acting alone. Eastwood directs like a man in love with his actors and his scenery, employing long takes and two-shots to give the story a sense of real time that is too often eschewed by younger directors in favor of interesting angles. In the end, while this is a great performance showcase, it bogs down a story that holds relatively little suspense, as it lumbers on toward the inevitable horrific conclusion that plays out over perhaps 40 minutes at the end of the film. (It is not unlike that last long, ponderous sentence I wrote. I'm still in the rhythm of the movie.)
MYSTIC RIVER is not a police procedural mystery. It is a mystery about human behavior, about these men and their pasts and their relationships with women and their world. It is only about their relationships with one another as those relationships are colored by external events. As such, this is safe territory for a "guy movie" that plumbs deep emotion without feeling anything too personal. It's a story about what Real Men dream of doing, and how it feels when the dreams become real.
With all this weight, I can't imagine what the composers were thinking while scoring the film. Certainly, of something happier and more uplifting than what played out on the screen. The score was at times so utterly out of place as to be insulting, and I cringed more than once when the refrain played.
I can't address any issue in the plot without unraveling the tapestry Helgeland weaves in his screenplay. I can say that this film is full of disturbing moments, sucker-punches, and anguish, and it will not apologize to you after the beating. But sometimes, a beating is worth it for what you take away, even if the lesson is that such a beating is better fantasized than delivered.
8/10 for the performances, screenplay and Eastwood's steady hand; points deducted for a too-indulgent pace and the ridiculous score that snapped me right out of the moment a half dozen times and made me grateful for moments of silence.