into the Mystic...

Rating: 8/10 (20 March 2010)

The Mystic River is another example, after Million Dollar Baby of Clint Eastwood's flawless directing. The scenes are made with perfection. The story for some may be only a "who's the killer?" crime but even though trying to solve the crime is still exciting here, that's not exactly the whole point. The point of the story is the exploration of human soul, humans, what do we do, when and why, what can cause what...
The strongest part of the movie are performances, especially by Sean Penn, but also Tim Robbins and a lot more. They're one of the best performances in years of film-making, for sure.
The story itself and the plot in my opinion at parts is to slow, but now that I think about it, I think it might have been because I was really sleepy and it was late as I can't - analyzing the whole movie - think of one single scene that was either unnecessary or not strong enough. That's directing enough.
The story, after the ending makes you sit for a while and think about what you just saw and that's good. It's dark, it's surprising, it's very emotional and believable.
It's a very good movie, but somehow I seem to think that Gone Baby Gone made me sleep less nights thinking abut what would I do, who was right, blah blah blah, but as the directing and performances as well as the plot itself - Mystic River is a simply strong and important movie.