A wasted opportunity

Rating: 5/10 (4 April 2006)

I missed this movie at the theaters so I was very much looking forward to seeing it last night on TV. I knew it had terrific reviews and won a couple of Oscar's - not that this by itself is a sign of particular artistic merits though... Well, back then I was sorry to miss it but now - I hate to admit - I'm quite happy I did because in the end, it turned out to be quite a letdown.
Let me start with a few strong points: It is a slow paced movie, technically low-key, no fireworks, no explosions, no cool one-liners, no car chases, no showdowns, no CGI, no gadgetry. These days this is pretty courageous. In the credits, the list of stuntmen were only 3 names or so long and I still wonder where they were used. So Eastwood deliberately reduces the movie to its essentials: actors and script. And filming the whole thing. I think the art direction and cinematography is very well done. While I've never been to Boston, this blue-collar, unfancy neighborhood is coming across very well. Yes the atmosphere is pretty bleak and even depressing, but I think it fits well.
I cannot find much fault with the acting of the protagonists. Yes Sean Penn is overdoing it a few times (crimesite scene, heavy breathings. I thought he might get a heart attack right there) but nothing to get too upset about. That he deserved the Oscar for this performance is certainly debatable - but then again see my Oscar comment at the beginning.
Tim Robbins puts on the best performance of them all, certainly believable except for the scene with his wife later in the movie where he is trying to cry but ends up laughing... or was he laughing and tried to convert into crying?? Overall he's giving a credible beaten dog.
Bacon is good but there is not much to his character that requires more than being a cop. He is certainly the least troubled of the three "friends".
Fishburne is a very good actor. His cop is entirely believable, nothing overblown except the silly remark about being able to see whether a guy was in jail by the way he carries "it" between his shoulders.
The women are portrayed weakly, though. Hayden, Robbins wife is utterly confusing. Why is she so nervous all the time, even at the beginning? I could not understand.
Linney is a complete loss. She could just as well be left out of the movie, it would change nothing EXCEPT, thankfully, spare us the completely out of context speech at the end. What was THAT?? Well, we must have reached the bottom of our moral bankruptcy if we indeed believe this...
It was great fun to see Eli Wallach in the liquor store. He must be old as Methusalem by now but actually looked pretty good still, and indeed was not senile at all :-). But why not credit him for this cute stunt??
So we have good actors and good filming/art direction up until now.
What's left? Music for once. Or the lack thereof. Please, Clint, next time hire a professional composer again and play your music to your children and grandchildren. But beware, they might not love you more for it... It may be interesting to attempt only one theme for the whole movie. But upon final reviews, somebody should have told you that it failed. The score was very boring. If you want to stick with only one theme, make some variations of it: key, rhythm, instrumentation. Check Bach or Beethoven for instance, and realize that you are not in their league...
And finally the real culprit, the unsatisfactory script. I did not read the underlying book, but it is obvious that the film tries to string together too many twists and ideas with the result that many of them come out half-baked only or not at all. A few examples:
Bacon and his speechless wife: Sure, the idea is to add "depth" to Bacon's character but it is done in a heavy-handed, inelegant way. Scrap these scenes! Instead, show Bacon how he looks at their picture more often, show Fishburne talking to him and Bacon being detracted by seeing the picture. Maybe show some happy (or ugly) memory flashback of his. The resolution as presented, with his wife regaining speech the moment he resolves the case is so far-fetched, so clichéd, so... CHEAP! Are we really so stupid to be treated in this way??
What was this finger-shooting gesture at Penn at the end? Why does Katie want to leave to Las Vegas to commence a new life?
The worst offence of the script was to make a suspect out of Robbins in the first place. Nobody is EVER questioning his motivation for such murder: Not the cops, not his wife, not Sean Penn. Maybe he killed her because the girls danced on the bar and disturbed him watching baseball?? Gimme a break!! Or he does plan to get eventual "revenge" on Penn and waits for 19 years to finally kill his child. Of course not. He would have abducted here at the age of 6 or 8 or so. But this he did not. He is actually a very weak suspect. Anybody in his right mind would immediately see that.
Were Penn (and/or Hayden) indeed so underlit NOT to make Robbins at least show them the body of the killed pedophile? Surely a true case of "blind revenge" in the most literal sense...
I have more but I'm running out of space. There are many things I liked in this film. But the script is simply not good enough to make Mystic River a REALLY good film. A wasted opportunity, sadly so.