Horrendous editing, dialogue, and pacing ruins this interesting film

Rating: 7/10 (12 January 2004)

I mean, it dragged on _forever_. Had the editor only cut the excess one or two seconds that seemed to be in every scene, it would have saved at least 20 minutes of runtime. Not to mention the numerous scenes where a character simply looks around the frame for two or three seconds before a cut to something totally different.

Exaggerated Boston accents made much of the clipped dialogue incomprehensible. I had trouble understanding what Boyle was saying most of the time. Not everyone from Boston has the Boston accent.
** Spoilers ** In addition, the film assumes too much about the audience's inferential abilities. E.g., when we see the character reach around in the ceiling for the gun, it's not evident that the holster he retrieves is empty, even when he shows the holster to the others-- it's on screen for about 0.3 seconds. So unless the viewer properly infers that the item Harris retrieves is a holster and that it's empty, the next couple of minutes make no sense whatsoever.
I found myself confused and wanting the film to get to the point, and then wanting it to end. Except there was no point. I mean, the guy kills the wrong person and gets away with it, and the police don't even look at him? What was the point of the movie? Was it only an observation of one man's fall from grace? "Unforgiven" was that and also a cautionary tale, perhaps. Mystic River has none of the magic and appeal of
"Unforgiven," which people have compared Mystic River to. I admit, I was intrigued by the wife's reaction to her husband admitting having killed the wrong man, and that scene is one of the best in the film. However it doesn't make up for no less than 3 hours of confusing film with sparse dialogue and the director trying to hide the ball from the audience. I gave it a 7 because the actors' performances were all outstanding and that makes the movie a watchable story, if not a well-told one.