Grade:  B

Director:  Clint Eastwood		Released:  October 2003
Writer:  Brian Helgeland from Dennis Lehane's novel		MPAA Rating:  R
Players:  Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Kevin Bacon, Laurence Fishburne, Marcia Gay Harden, Laura Linney		Running time:  137 minutes

Ratings System

This film is perfect support for the argument I made against In The Bedroom.

[spoilers, highlight hidden text to read]
In The Bedroom lost me because one of the main characters went vigilante and killed the person who killed his son.  Mystic River has a similar story line.  The difference is that Mystic River sets up the character in a way that makes it believable that he would commit such an act.  In The Bedroom does not.  In The Bedroom asks the viewer to believe that a seemingly normal, everyday person would commit that crime.
[end spoilers]

Tim Robbins, Kevin Bacon and Laurence Fishburne are excellent.  The rest of the cast is uneven.  At times, the film gets a little too melodramatic for my taste.  Over the top.

This is the kind of picture that is very good ... but also easy to pick out flaws.  I don't want to bash this film, because I rather like it.  It's a film made the "old fashioned way" (if there is such a thing).  No big chase scene, nor any other set piece.  Good pacing, honest storytelling.  It just won't go into my book as one of the best films I've seen.

- crocoPuffs