Mystic River

Lance: Mystic River is one of the only movies on the Mass. Movie Project list that I had seen in the theater before starting this project. It also might just about be the only movie ever produced that I have seen and Scott has not. Scott came into the movie expecting that it would be "a downer." So what do you say, bro? Did Mystic River leave you morose?

Scott: Oh yeah, sure. I've pretty much spent my hours since drinking cheap wine and listening to the Dave Matthews Band while staring out at the specter of the merciless and unchanging ocean. Actually, it wasn't quite that bad in terms of morosity. It was a downer, but it was a well made downer, so that's good at least. I know Sean Penn has been accused in some circles of chewing the scenery like the world's biggest termite, but I didn't think he was too over the top. Maybe once or twice, but nothing terribly egregious. And it's nice to see Tim Robbins bringing his A game to something other than a charity hockey game.

Lance: I would be one of Sean Penn's accusers. I imagine it's hard to practice the way one would react if he found out his daughter had been murdered. But at least in the scene at the park he was over the moon, never mind over the top. (Perhaps it would be only fair to have director Clint Eastwood share the blame. You'll notice in the still from that scene that there are at least 11 uniformed officers holding Penn back. That's an awful lot of blue for one distraught Bostonian. Maybe Penn was told to be emotional enough to need 11 officers to restrain him).

Penn's occasional outbursts notwithstanding, I liked the film quite a bit. While the movie is ostensibly a murder mystery, it's more about three boys from East Boston who grow up to be three very different people, and who are never quite able to get past the kidnapping and molestation of one of them (the character played by Robbins).

The film begins in 1975 as the three boys are playing street hockey and causing a little mischief. A car pulls up and a man posing as police officer convinces Dave to get in the car so the cop can take him home. Once in the car, a second man who is posing as a priest (or who is a priest...here's another case where the knowledge of the Catholic Priest molestation scandals that were uncovered earlier this decade influenced the way I saw the film) flashes a ring and smiles a creepy smile and it's pretty obvious where this is going. The boy suffers through four days of sexual abuse before he's able to escape, his life to be changed forever. The three are thrown together again as Penn's daughter is murdered, Robbins becomes a suspect, and Kevin Bacon is the homicide detective assigned to the case. Even 25 years later, the incident shapes the way the characters relate (or don't relate) to each other.

Scott: I particularly liked the performance from Marcia Gay Harden as the wife of Tim Robbins. Even though I am usually a Laura Linney fan, though, I wasn't super thrilled with her character. She seemed just a little too Lady Macbeth there at the end and she also had the only accent that didn't quite work for me. I did think they did a particularly good job casting the kids for the young versions of each character though.

I don't know, I guess I don't have a heck of a lot to say about this one. It was good. Not great, but good. My quibbles with it were minor -- such as the fact that I thought they ended it at the wrong place (it should have ended with the phone call where Kevin Bacon's character finally talks to his wife). I also didn't think it was a fantastic mystery, though as you said that wasn't the point; it was borderline egregious that they had to resort to obscuring an obvious clue by having both police officers be just plain too stupid to do the most basic detective work on the case (seriously, wouldn't listening to the 911 call be just about the first thing you do on the case?). But overall it was fine I guess. Could have used a little bit of the Carey Treatment to liven it up if you know what I mean, but otherwise solid. Not as boring as Flags of Our Fathers, anyway.

Tags: Sean Penn Kevin Bacon Tim Robbins Clint Eastwood Mystic River 2003