Mystic River

Oh God! This movie… what should I say… haunts me. I dunno whether ‘haunt’ is the right word or not, but boy after watching this movie, all I could hear was the background music of Mystic River, scored by clint eastwood and see the faces of sean penn and tim robbins. Hats off to them! It’s no wonder that both of them earned an oscar at the 2003 academy awards for the best actor and the best supporting actor category respectively. Mystic River is adapted from the novel with the same name written by dennis lehane and directed by clint eastwood. The movie begins with 3 friends jimmy, sean and dave playing hockey on the streets of boston. It’s evident that the three of them are really close friends but they move apart after a tragic incident. On that fateful day, dave was picked up by a ‘cop’ for destructing public property. This guy was no actual cop and dave was taken hostage where he was sexually abused. After 4 days in captivity, dave manages to escape but things are never normal for him. The three friends drift apart; thus a friendship which was supposed to be for a lifetime, turned into a mere acquaintance. Years pass by when another tragic and horrific incident reconnects these 3 friends: jimmy’s 19 year old daughter, Catherine is brutally murdered, dave is a suspect and sean played by kevin bacon is one of the investigating officers. Tim robbins my God! He was just mind blowing as the troubled dave: a sexually abused child, now a 30 something old father of a son who still has nightmares about that tragic incident that robbed him off his childhood and innocence, whose wife doesn’t know of his ugly past- he was just great. Sean penn as the father of the murdered teen, the local mob boss was good too, but he had a negative stint in his character, this brash punk attitude that made me dislike him. But the best part of the movie I must say has to be the ending, such an unexpected one, it just takes you by surprise. It’s as if someone grabs you from behind and you are scared, speechless shocked everything. And it is for this reason that clint eastwood is clint eastwood and which is why we were supplied with such gem of a movies like million dollar baby, letters from iwo jima, flags of our fathers and now gran torino. And when the movie ends, all you see, all u hear is dave’s face and the background score titled ‘Mystic River’. At least I did.