Great movie with powerful performances!

Rating: 9/10 (21 November 2003)

After I saw "Mystic River," the movie remained in my thoughts for the rest of the day. It's been a while that a movie has made me think so much after I viewed it. For that reason, I really want to see the movie again. The performances from the whole cast is really great.
From reading some of the other comments, and the message board, I've seen that a lot of the people who haven't liked this movie think that it's very slow. I wouldn't argue with anyone there. It's not fast paced, but I don't believe it's intended to be. I greatly admire Clint Eastwood because he's willing to take the time needed to tell a story. He doesn't look down on his audience; he assumes they have an attention span that will get them through a movie more than ninety minutes long. I'm not saying that the people who didn't like it are wrong, I'm just saying there's another way of looking at it.
If someone was to try to trim the movie up to make it faster and/or shorter in length, what scene could be taken out? As I think about the movie, one scene builds on top of the other. Information on top of more information.
"Mystic River" is one of the best films I've seen this year, and is another great movie from Clint Eastwood. Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, and Kevin Bacon are at their best here.