Excellent!!!

Rating: 10/10 (16 December 2003)

Mystic River (From director Clint Eastwood) is definitely a masterpiece of crime genre. This intense drama about the investigation of the murder of a young woman will give you a ride on the emotion spectrum with the same intensity as in a roller-coaster. Slowly paced, beautiful shady photography, unforgettable performances by almost the whole cast will keep you entertained from the beginning to the end.
The story is about three guys, Jimmy (Sean Penn), Dave (Tim Robbins) and Sean (Kevin Bacon), friends during their childhood days, not quite so after a horrible incident happen to one of them in their youngster's days. All of them lead completely different lives and although the live in the same neighborhood, they hardly talk to each other. Jimmy became a thieve and did some time in jail. Dave, who was raped by two pedophiles, now lives a quiet, insignificant life together with his wife Celeste (Marcia Gay Harden). Sean has a troublesome life since his wife abandon him, taking his newborn daughter along with her, though Sean's wife call him very often, she does not say a word to him on the phone, just listen Sean's voice. The night Katie, Jimmy's daughter, is murdered, she had visited the same bar as Dave, who later on the same night arrive home all freaked out with blood all over him and with a knife cut in his abdomen. When Celeste ask him what has happen to him, he only replies that he has been mugged and that he thinks he had killed the mugger. Dave, which I believe is one of the best performances of Robbins since the Shawshank redemption, becomes the audience's prime suspect but not so to detectives Sean Devine and Whitey Powers (Lawrence Fishburn) who are assigned to the case.
As you already might guess, the movie is all about Sean and Whitey (ironically Afro-American) trying to crack the case. Nonetheless, Eastwood shows that he has the knack for directing flicks, and for storytelling. Mystic River is for me one of the best movies of the year, and I would not be surprise if Eastwood or any of the amazingly good main characters get an Oscar Nomination.