a murky river indeed

Rating: 3/10 (26 January 2004)

The great thing about Mystic River is the actors, dealing with some marginally good directing and a horrible script full of coincidences and synchronicities that even the Greek gods of drama would have trouble explaining.
The trouble is that the director, Clint, truly believes he has created a masterpiece. The commercials now, in time for Oscars, have him commenting about the lack of special fx's and how that truly makes the film greater than maybe Lord of the Rings.
The problem is, that it has no special fx's whether it be digital or storytelling whatsoever. It reminded me of a bad off-Broadway play that runs on a showcase contract and garners good reviews for its cast. Other than that, it has nothing special about it. The greatest special fx to me is the story and this story is so convoluted, so built to give each actor one great scene, that I was tired, and drained and well predictably bored.
I sat down with my friend and about 20 minutes into the movie, we made a list, and said, let's see how many actors get an Oscar clip scene and sure enough everyone got one.
The fact of the matter is that this movie was purposely done for Oscars. It also happens to be done for the Hollywood industry who love to be led to "insight" by the hand, rather than actually have to think about anything.
Mystic River is far from being the best picture of 2003. Lord of the Rings is marginally a much better film, but hey, has anybody seen American Splendor? Or even Thirteen?