mystic river review

Dear Sumire,

So nowadays my life is hectic. Not entirely because I'd too much to do. It's just because of the way-too-long-working-hours. imagine, 9.30a.m. to 7.30p.m. I'll only reach home earliest by 8p.m. and after a short shower and dinner, the clock would already struck 10p.m.

No more time for cinema whatsoever. So I stick to a little online gaming and watching downloaded movies on my laptop.

So I'll just review older movies rather then some really new ones, and hope that whoever that might read my blog may pick up these movies themselves. But maybe I might give a little warning beforehand. I'm no professional, so my review may a little biased towards my own opinion, and my review might have some spoiler in it that might ruin your movie experience. Anyway, let's start.

So here I'm gonna review a film called Mystic River. It's not a fantasy, and it's not mystical in any way. It's a pretty sad story really. It tells a sad story of how friends became strangers, and in a bizarre turn of event, reunite them, in the strangest way you can ever imagine.

The story started off with 3 young kids Jimmy Markum, Sean Devine, and Dave Boyle playing hockey on a street down their blocks in 1970's Boston. When their ball fell into the drain, they were left with nothing to do. Jimmy decided that they write their name on the wet cement in the walkway, so the names will remain there forever. When it's finally Dave's turn to write his name, a car pulled over and two man appeared to be cops claimed that the kids, especially Dave had committed a serious crime. The cops arrested Dave. Turns out the duo ain't cops at all.

Dave were captured by the pedophiles for a few days before he finally escaped.

Some 25 years later, Sean (Kevin Bacon; Hollow Man) is now a state police officer. Jimmy (Sean Penn; Fair Game)being the daredevil as he was as a kid, is an ex-con running a local sundry shop. Dave (Tim Robbins) is now a blue-collar man seemingly still affected by the horrible childhood experience. Dave and Jimmy are still neighbors in their old neighborhood, and is related to each other through marriage. Their wifes are cousins. However, it was revealed in the plot that the trio had not been close to each other since the childhood incident that troubled their past.

Celeste cleaning Dave up from his bloody wound.

The plot thickens when Dave came home with his clothes bloody and he tells his wife Celeste that he accidentally killed a burglar. His wife believed him, and got rid of the bloody clothes for him.

Jimmy learns about her daughter's death.

However the trust begins to wear off bit by bit when she learned that Jimmy's daughter Katie were found dead the very next day. The distrust was then supported with Dave's extremely weird behavior. Dave began talking about vampirism, about how a man can die and rise again in the very same body but a totally different soul; if a vampire still had one.

Sgt. Sean Devine and Sgt. Whitey Powers

Katie's death reunites the three childhood friend in a very gloomy situation. Dave and Sean somehow rekindled an old bond with Jimmy. Over the course of the movie, it is Sean with his partner, Sergeant Whitey Powers (Lawrence Fishburne) who tries to track down the murderer of Katie. Meanwhile, Jimmy runs his own underlings called the Savage Brothers to trace down the murderer faster than the police, so can have his vengeance.

Sean telling Jimmy that he got the real killers.

There's many plot twist in this incredibly dark film. Celeste who loses her trust decided to tell Jimmy about Dave's odd behavior. Jimmy began to suspect Dave and even ends up killing his old friend to avenge Katie. However, Dave turn out to be the wrong guy.

Dave were not completely honest however, even with his own wife. He did killed someone, and it was revealed that Dave was fired up seeing a pedophile in action, and he killed the man in rage. He decided not to tell his wife because he wouldn't want anyone to know he is still trapped in his childhood nightmares.

I like how this movie is presented, and the intense atmosphere worked really well in this movie, although at some point, too much talking and describing seems to bore audiences out a little.

4/5

jin