Mystic River (2003)

Starring Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Kevin Bacon, Laurence Fishburne, Marcia Gay Harden, Laura Linney.
Directed by Clint Eastwood.
Written by Brian Helgeland.
Based on the novel by Dennis Lehane.
Produced by Robert Lorenz, Judie G. Hoyt, and Clint Eastwood.
Distributed by Warner Bros.
137 minutes.

LVJeff's Rating: 9/10

Tragic Mystic

Mystic River is a breath of fresh air, a crime genre movie less concerned about the what, when, and where than it is about the who. In anyone else's hands, the movie could have easily become an everyday suspense thriller, given its murder mystery, multiple suspects, and clue-following cops. In the hands of Clint Eastwood, it's a movie that ponders and reflects. Instilled with a solemnity throughout, it contains shades of Eastwood's masterpiece, Unforgiven, itself a thoughtful take on a genre, less about the action -- the effect -- and more about what goes on behind the action -- the cause.

In Mystic River, the causes contributing to the story's ultimate tragedy are given very clear beginnings. The film centers on three individuals from a small Boston community -- Jimmy (Sean Penn), Sean (Kevin Bacon), and Dave (Tim Robbins). As children, Jimmy and Sean watched in helplessness as Dave was abducted by a pair of child molesters posing as city officials. Each one of the kids is profoundly affected by the event -- the guilt brought about by being unable to save Dave encouraged Jimmy's aggressive assertiveness and compelled Sean to join the police. Dave, who would escape after several days, would turn out to be a meek, haunted man. All three of them would find their own ways of righting what each of them perceive as wrongs.

The three childhood friends lead very separate lives in the present day, but a horrific trigger event creates a scenario that allows them to meet again, albeit under circumstances of suspicion. Each one of them is reminded of the childhood adbuction and each considers the path he took to the present day. The movie seems to giving Eastwood's own take on the dynamics of that combustible trio: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Sean, now a police detective, solves the crime by the book. Jimmy takes the law into his own hands and sends his friends, a group of heavies, to question the community. And Dave finds himself involved after being linked to the crime through what he claims is a separate event; he now wanders the town like a ghost. Tying the motives of the three is an overall sense of justice -- each one is driven not only to find but also to create justice, with varying levels of intensity. For the jaded Sean, it's work that simultaneously keeps him alive and darkens his spirit; for the angry Jimmy, the need for justice is extremely personal; and for Dave, justice comes in the form of spontaneous outrage and an inability to manage the retained feelings from his childhood trauma.

All together, Mystic River provides a fascinating examination of the motives and the factors that drive these characters, from their pasts to their present day wives and partners, from the social dynamics of the community to the expectations that are borne from them. The story is skillfully adapted from Dennis Lehane's novel by Brian Helgeland, who proves once again his most potent skill is realized in adapting labyrinthine triple-protagonist murder mysteries like L.A. Confidential and not necessarily in directing the latest Heath Ledger movie. Eastwood mixes the ingredients skillfully, although at times his symbolism is overwrought and threatens to take the film into pretentious areas. But it's also easy to see this as evidence of Eastwood's commitment to make his movie into a grandly tragic play of human folly and frailty, which constantly work to deteriorate any given societal microcosm. To his credit or good fortune, or perhaps both, his players are more than up for the task, with Robbins especially standing out, hiding his normally imposing tall form inside the barely recognizable withered shell of a beaten soul.

Most profoundly, the film examines vigilantism, an element crime movies often take for granted. Here, it is given repercussions, linked inextricably to the gravity of murder, death, and harm, as it should be. For many reason, I feel I can nickname the movie In the Bedroom 2, only this time the full effects of vigilantism are explored rather than presented as a desperate solution of which the consequences can only be imagined. Mystic River fully illustrates why taking the law into one's own hands can never be equatable to law and order itself; and that, although it can create a short-lived catharsis, more often than not it contributes to an erosion of society, even within our world of relative modern-day lawfulness.

Thus, we witness a small section of this Boston community experience a meltdown. Eastwood allows the tension to mount as each new decision is being made by this group of characters. The tension doesn't lead to an explosion in the end; rather, it is an implosion with stronger far-reaching effects. By the end of the movie, for certain individuals, the effects caused by a handful of bad decisions are devastatingly irrevocable. Mystic River is a modern epic tragedy, where the weight of everyone's actions are felt from conception to enactment -- where the word "weight" can even be applied to the word "actions" in the first place.

©Jeffrey Chen, Oct. 1, 2003

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