THE PERFORMANCES WERE AWESOME (TIM AND SEAN WERE LARGER THAN LIFE)

Rating: Null/10 (15 November 2003)

The only other user to post was on point. The ending left much to be desired but the performances were mind-blowing. Tim Robbins(David Boyle)was so good playing the victim of child molestation that it made me wonder if he had been a victim in real life. His characterization was so moving, that you felt all the emotions he was portraying and more. I sobbed with him, I cried with him, etc. I did not know he was this talented an actor. Sean Penn as the kid from the streets was also awesome but Laura Linney (his wife) was a right bitch and Linney's performance was lukewarm at best. Whitey (Laurence Fishburne) was okay with his bad cop attitude and Kevin Bacon was okay too but there was nothing spectacular about their performances. LF's accent as a Black Bostonian was damn good, I've never encountered a Black Bostonian in my life. There were three great actors in the movie, the last member of the triumvrate is Marcia Gay Harden, as the stuttering housewife. When she started thinking Dave was guilty of the murder, you could see her fear and pain.
Spoiler
Dave did not commit the murder of the daughter of his childhood friend.
Alternative Ending (this better be on the dvd I will purchase)
In actuality, it was three people who entered the car with that scary dude that molested poor Dave, so it should have been three people who died when Sean killed Dave. One could say that Dave's death occurred when the child molesters touched him, but since he had to die physically in the film, his childhood friends should have died too. Marcia Gay Harden's Celeste should have shot Sean at the parade and the lieutenant friend of Dave's should not have reunited with his wife, but had to deal with the death of his two friends and gone insane and committed suicide.
I loved this film, it resonated with me for reasons I do not feel like divulging, but I am sure you can guess at. It showed me that there is hope and that pain is a part of life, a fact one must deal with no matter how bad, if they don't consider suicide an option.