mystic river (2003)
			director:  clint eastwood laura linney, sean penn tim robbins, kevin bacon laurence fishburne unfashionable observations rating: C-				Mystic River is a movie about murder, misunderstanding, and madness.  As intriguing as this sounds, this movie ultimately fails to capture our hearts on account of its over-exaggerated dramatic structure.  This is one of those movies where you sit down, watch as the actors attempt to put as much feeling as they can into their roles, and then leave the theatre without so much as a blink.  Clint Eastwood’s latest tells the story of Jimmy Markum (Sean Penn), Dave Boyle (Tim Robbins) and Sean Devine (Kevin Bacon), three boyhood friends who, after personally experiencing a tragic event in their childhood, find themselves leading very different lives as adults.  When Jimmy’s 19-year-old daughter is murdered, Sean—now a police detective—is assigned to investigate the case, while an emotionally unstable Dave unwittingly becomes a potential suspect.  An intense, sometimes perplexing who-done-it ensues. This movie consciously sets out to be an Oscar-winning drama, no doubt about it.  It does everything that it should do.  And that’s the problem.  It tries too hard to accomplish its goal of “heart-wrenching drama.”  By adding the several elements of murder, madness, divorce, revenge, and even child abuse, it makes for a wholly unbelievable, sometimes officious movie.  It unapologetically demands that the Kleenex come out through its emotionally burdensome story.  And for that, it demands too much. I usually have no problem with heavy dramas.  But this one didn’t have a point to it besides its insistence on notions of its own sense of self-importance.  Surely, this movie is Oscar-worthy.  But that says very little of its quality these days. I’d give Clint Eastwood’s Mystic River a C-.
	Unfashionable Observations © 2003