Best Picture of 2003

Rating: 9/10 (4 January 2005)

Clint Eastwood is a good actor and an even greater director, with many landmark films, but "Mystic River" is arguably his best work so far. A superb study of America's suburban life and its characters filled with hate, mistrust, feelings of guilt and revenge, brilliantly portrayed by an all-star cast lead by Sean Penn, Marcia Gay-Harden and Tim Robbins.
Scribe Brian Helgeland proves himself again, after his adaptation of "L.A. Confidential", as a careful reader and masterful distiller to extract the pure essence of a complex novel.
Very well earned Oscars for Penn and Robbins. Next to "Lost in Translation", this is the Best Picture of 2003.
Highly recommended!