Plot mystery unfair to audience

Rating: Null/10 (11 June 2004)

**MAJOR SPOILERS**
This review focuses on the tricky screenplay and the end results, so please don't read this if you intend to see the movie.
I waited for this to come out on DVD and I'm glad I did. Given that the acting and direction are terrific, but the story for this film left me disappointed. No doubt, the movie has been set up as a mystery. Did Tim Robbins kill Sean Penn's daughter or not? The initial suspicion I had early in the movie was correct. The plot is actually quite convoluted and takes advantage of too many far out coincidences. But going into the third act, I felt cheated into being able to intelligently dissect what the answers are. Out of the blue, two side characters seen only a couple minutes throughout the film, given no foreshadowing, become the prime suspects. One thing that nags at you throughout the entire film is what possible motive Tim Robbins had for killing his best friend's daughter? But, in order to sell the idea, they have him in the same bar as her, have him leaving the same time she did, Tim kills someone the same time she is murdered, then later starts to become wacko in order to get us to believe that he would confess killing her to Sean. Why would Tim lie to his wife about killing a mugger instead a child molester? What difference would it make?
When the very apt Kevin Bacon and Laurence Fishburne follow leads, we are not given any hint of who the real perps are, until minutes away from our surprise climatic ending. I felt short-changed in that respect, where I invested nearly two hours of clues to come up with my guess at the ending, only to have brand new information toss it out the window. Of course, movies aren't required to follow rules, and sometimes it works to make the audience work a little bit to figure things out. But here, we are not given a fair chance. Perhaps that was the point of the movie, to change it from a perceived mystery into a character study. But I don't buy it.
Yes, Sean Penn and Tim Robbins, along with the excellent dialogue and direction, deserve the critical attention it received. But how about the movie audience, we don't get our reward for investing our interest in the characters.