"Mystic River"
A Review by Gary Chew

GARY CHEW/Sacramento
10/14/2003

Director Clint Eastwood's new film is a whodunit, police procedural that releases more testosterone in its two hours and seventeen minutes running time than a whole season's episodes of "The Sopranos." Oh, just another typical good-guy-blows-away-bad-guy Eastwood flick, you say? Not on your life. "Mystic River" is so very much more than any of that.

Director Clint Eastwood

Eastwood definitely made my day the other night with this truly great American blue-collar tragedy which is so palpable with anguishing existential pain I could touch it as it hung there right in front of me in the dark and heavy air of the theatre.

It is not possible to say who is best in this film. They're all just right and Right On as three boyhood friends, grown up. There's Sean Penn as Jimmy Markum, the father who agonizes over his nineteen-year-old daughter's murder; there's Kevin Bacon as Sean Devine, the cop looking for her killer; and then, there's Tim Robbins as Dave Boyle, the other buddy, who lives in the deep, emotional maze of guilt from abduction and sexual abuse suffered at the hands of two adult males when all three boys were only eleven.

This terrible event in Dave's past has greatly affected Jimmy and Sean as well, and it plays with riveting consequences upon the current killing of Jimmy's daughter and subsequent resolution which no one should dare to reveal to you.

The entire cast of "Mystic River"is superb with performances uniformly outstanding across the board. And it is in the uniformity of acting and lack of upstaging that Clint Eastwood gets the credit. Good directors are the ones who make that happen---when it happens. So, tribute must be paid Dirty Harry, himself, as it proves, with "Mystic River," Clint Eastwood has seen the artistic light.

More credit must be heaped upon the two women with significant roles in the film: Marcia Gay Harden as Celeste, Dave's wife; and Laura Linney as Annabeth, Jimmy's wife. Each plays such a different character from the other and yet each is so good and so memorable.

In fact, as I see this film, any actor in a prominent part in "Mystic River" could easily be nominated and win an Oscar next March. And that includes Laurence Fishburne as Whitey, Sean's partner in the murder investigation, who is the outside observer among these Irish-Catholic families in their Boston neighborhood. Right now, my guess would be that Clint Eastwood will be one of the nominees for the Best Director category.

Lawrence Fishburne and Kevin Bacon

Of course, Eastwood and his cast would be the first to say how much they owe to the Word of "Mystic River," which came down to them from Brian Helgeland ("L.A. Confidential"), who wrote the script; and Dennis Lehane, who wrote the novel that was a best seller in 2001. The Academy may well be looking in this area, too, for bestowing one of its coveted statues.

I must advise, however, that it will be difficult for anyone who has experienced the loss of a child to watch this movie. You will suffer as Sean Penn's character suffers. "Mystic River" is a powerfully intimate earthquake that unflinchingly surveys the undulating terrain of love, revenge, violence and guilt, only to suggest, much as Dostoyevsky said of crime and punishment, that all grow from the same seed. But just the same, let's celebrate. Dirty Harry has come clean!

You can watch a trailer on the official "Mystic River" site.

Gary Chew can be reached via email at garychew@comcast.net.

Copyright © 2003, Gary Chew. All rights reserved.

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