Mystic River

Warner Bros. Pictures presents a Malpaso production in association with Village Roadshow pictures and NPV Entertainment

Starring: Sean Penn Tim Robbins Kevin Bacon Laurence Fishburne Marcia Gayharden and Laura Liney

Directed by: Clint Eastwood

Rating:*****!!!!!!!

Plot: Three childhood friends reunite after one of them looses a daughter, but all for different reasons. Soon nightmares from the past once buried will be remembered and everything will spiral out of control.

Acting: How exactly do you get all these great actors in one movie? A great script and director really help I guess. This cast is all together I think one of the best casts I have ever seen in a movie. If Mystic River is looked over this year in the Oscars I will send a letter, I swear. Now Sean Penn, besides the fact he likes to get into people's faces about his political opinions I ignore, he simply is an actor which can amaze you with one performance. Its rare to find him in movies so watch this while you can and catch 21 Grams coming soon. Penn plays the tough guy out of the group of three. He runs a store and has a big family and a past filled with crime in which he would like to forget. Penn is amazing at letting a character evolve. A calm and patient man seemingly has a monster released once he finds out his daughter was killed. Why I loved it so much is I think I would act the same way if I found out my daughter was killed, his performance was so real and grabs your heart and you can almost agree with anything the man says good or bad. Along with Penn are a great group of actors including Kevin Bacon who plays a local detective who investigates the murder. Once friends with Penn's character as a young boy. I have always loved Bacon I really think he is a good guy. Even though he can play such great bad guys like in Hollow man and Trapped. Hollow Man was weak but Trapped I think was looked over as a movie. Anyway Bacon does a great job and you can feel for his character as well throughout the film. Tim Robbins plays the third friend in the childhood group who as a boy was kidnapped and molested. I like Robbins but I personally think he over acted in places but its all good he still delivered a very sensitive a great performance. The rest of the cast was made up of Laurence Fishburne (Matrix Reloaded) who brings a different light to a cop performance, something about him just clicked with me and I love to see him play a cop again. Now what disapointed me greatly was that the amazing Laura Linney who I love a lot is barely in the film. She has a couple lines in the beginning of the film and one amazing scene at the end where she is one seductive woman but that is it. Maybe in the dvd we can see some more scenes with her.

Directing/Writing: Clint Eastwood is the man. This is now stated by me and if you disagree you can suck my ass. This movie has one brilliant look to it. My favorite scene is in which Sean Penn's character finds out that his daughter is dead. He tries to rush past some police officers to get to her but he is being held back by at least ten officers, the camera starts floating away and we look down on the them as if we were watching through the eyes of an angel. Eastwood has one hell of great talent and making every scene something special. It might that he was working with jut great actors but I really loved the pacing and the style of this film. Everything moves itself so slowly to when things finally happen it dawns on the audience what is going on, it is amazing. I have not yet read the book but I am sure I will enjoy it and that the movie stayed true to most of it. Mystic River is clearly the best film this year and if Oscar ignores this, I will give on watching that show anymore.

Overall: Great movie with style and class with real characters and a meaning behind it. Something a lot of films have been lacking this year.