Copshow pilot with Hollywood stars

Rating: 6/10 (9 June 2004)

A slow-burning, semi-intelligent and extremely traditional thriller about three childhood friends reunited as adults through a murder. Predictably, the three street-playing kids are now the investigating detective, the victim's father and the suspected murderer.
Solidly acted by Sean Penn (somewhat bombastic) playing an ex-con revenge pop, Kevin Bacon (better) as an unheroically tense detective and Tim Robbins as a paedophile-abused murder suspect (subdued).
I won't bother revealing the plot. It's perhaps worth catching this well-crafted film on TV, but it is definitely not a cinematic film.
The oscars awarded to Sean Penn and Tim Robbins for what is, at base, a humdrum copshow pilot with Hollywood stars, suggest that Clint Eastwood, who directed, has a lot of friends in the Academy.