A "Law & Order" episode in prestige-film drag

Rating: 5/10 (19 July 2004)

Yes, Clint Eastwood comes close to saving 'Mystic River,' but what exactly is it he's working so hard to save? A hokey, predictable potboiler, basically a grim, grimy episode of 'Law & Order,' pumped up with artificial Stephen-King flavoring (working-class New England setting, we-were-all-boys-together schtick, even a molested child). Eastwood tries to pull together a 'Godfather' with this pulpy suspense story, and it seems he pretty much succeeded with audiences and critics alike. And certainly, his style is assured--beautifully shot and lit without being pretentious, and nuzzling the conventions of the genre without ever lapsing into outright cliché. He plays against the corniness and stupidity of the script, and we very nearly forgive all the plot contrivances and coincidences, all the melodramatic, self-important 'moments,' and all the echoes of good and bad movies (and TV shows) past.
Yes, very nearly. But by the film's climax, we realize that this pulp has a decidedly pre-chewed feel; and once we're past the final will-he-or-won't-he standoff between Sean Penn and Tim Robbins (honestly, how surprising would the outcome have been either way?), Eastwood shows us he doesn't take this stuff seriously at all. He suddenly gives us, in quick succession: (a) a pat wrap-up of a Kevin Bacon subplot that we never cared about anyway, (b) a laughable Lady-Macbeth routine from Laura Linney that only makes us realize how poorly her character had been realized up to that point, and (c) an overlong, 'ambiguous' parade scene that reunites the major characters, and that might have had more resonance if we actually cared about any of them.
And, despite some very hard work from some very good actors, we don't. By now, Sean Penn should be legally forbidden to shout and/or cry in a film; he's turned into a parody of himself, and as such it's hardly surprising that the Academy finally recognized him this year. Here he can't even milk emotion from a dead-child storyline--all we see is the same old scowling and howling and mugging for the back row. Tim Robbins, on the other hand, disappears into the accent and gait of the psychologically damaged schlub Dave . . . and yet an actor disappearing isn't necessarily the same thing as a character emerging. (It isn't here, anyway.) Probably the best acting comes from Marcia Gay Harden, and yet her unlikable character is never developed, and is probably the most purely functional character in a plot full of them. Kevin Bacon and Laurence Fishburne have less showier roles, but they manage to breathe more life into them than we might expect.
If you approach the film as you would a TV murder mystery rather than the MAGNIFICENT CINEMATIC EXPERIENCE it's been made out to be, you might enjoy it. But personally, if I was going to make a script this cheesy into a film, I would have hired a director to turn its liabilities into strengths, not one who would try to hide them. At his peak, Dario Argento might have made a masterpiece out of this. 5.5 out of 10.