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Monday, January 24, 2011

Mystic River (film)


Mystic River is a 2003 American drama film directed, co-produced and scored by Clint Eastwood, starring Sean PennTim RobbinsKevin BaconLaurence FishburneMarcia Gay HardenLaura Linney and Emmy Rossum. The film was written by Brian Helgeland, based onDennis Lehane's novel of the same name.
The film opened to widespread critical acclaim. It was nominated for Academy Awards for Best PictureBest DirectorBest ActorBest Adapted ScreenplayBest Supporting Actor, and Best Supporting Actress. Sean Penn won Best Actor and Tim Robbins won Best Supporting Actor, making Mystic River the first film to win both awards since Ben-Hur in 1959.

Plot

The film opens with three boys, Jimmy Marcus, Sean Devine, and Dave Boyle playing hockey in a Boston street in 1977. A car pulls up and a man pretending to be a police officer gets out, and tells Dave to get in the car. He is held in a basement and abused by two child molesters. Four days later, he escapes.
Twenty-five years later, the boys are now grown and still living in Boston. Jimmy is an ex-con running a neighborhood store, while Dave is a blue-collar worker, still haunted by his abduction. The two are still neighbors and related by marriage. Jimmy's 19 year old daughter Katie is secretly dating Brendan Harris, a boy Jimmy despises. She and Brendan are planning on eloping to marry in Las Vegas.
Katie goes out for the night with her girl friends and is seen by Dave at a local bar. That night, Katie is murdered, and Dave comes home with an injured hand and blood on his clothes, which his wife Celeste helps him clean up. Dave claims that he fought off a mugger and "bashed his head into the concrete", and possibly killed him. Sean, who is now a detective with theMassachusetts State Police, investigates Katie's murder. In a subplot, Sean's pregnant wife Lauren has left him.
Over the course of the film, Sean and his partner track down leads while Jimmy conducts his own investigation using his neighborhood connections. Sean discovers that the gun used to kill Katie was also used in a liquor store robbery during the 1980s by "Just Ray" Harris, the father of Brendan (Katie's boyfriend). Harris has been missing for some time, but Sean believes that his gun was still in the house. Sergeant Powers suspects Dave as a possible perpetrator because he was one of the last people to see Katie alive. He also has a wounded hand and even though he continues to tell his wife he got it while being mugged, he tells the police a different story - soon Jimmy becomes suspicious of it. Dave continues to behave strangely, which upsets his wife to the point she is afraid he will hurt her. While Jimmy and his associates conduct their investigation, Dave's wife eventually tells Jimmy about Dave's behavior and the bloody clothing and her suspicions.
Jimmy and his friends get Dave drunk at a local bar. When Dave leaves the bar, the men follow him out. Jimmy tells Dave that he shot "Just Ray" Harris at that same location for ratting him out and sending him to jail. Jimmy informs Dave that his wife thinks he murdered Katie and tells Dave that he will let him live if he confesses; if he does not he will kill him. Dave repeatedly tells Jimmy that he did kill someone but it was not Katie: he beat a child molester to death after finding him having sex with a child prostitute in a car. Jimmy does not believe Dave's claim and threatens him with a knife. When Dave finally admits to killing Katie thinking he can escape with his life, Jimmy kills him and disposes of his body in the adjacent Mystic River.
While Dave is being killed, Brendan (having found out about his father's gun during questioning) confronts his younger brother Ray Jr. and his brother's friend John about Katie's murder. He beats the two boys and threatens to kill them if they don't admit their guilt, but he is almost shot by John. Sean and Powers arrive just in time to stop it.
The next morning, Sean tells Jimmy that the police have Katie's murderers – who have confessed. She was killed by Brendan's brother and his friend in a violent prank gone wrong. Sean asks Jimmy if he has seen Dave, because he is wanted for questioning in another case, the murder of a known child molester. A distraught Jimmy thanks Sean for finding his daughter's killers, but says "if only you had been a little faster." Sean reunites with his wife and his daughter Nora.

[edit]Cast

[edit]Release

[edit]Reception

Mystic River was well received by critics as well as viewers. The film has an 87% approval rating based on 191 reviews from critics at the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, and an even higher rating of 95% from its "Top Critics".[2] At the website MetaCritic, which utilizes a normalized rating system, the film earned a rating of 84/100 ("universal acclaim") based on 42 reviews.[3] Peter Travers of Rolling Stone wrote "Clint Eastwood pours everything he knows about directing into Mystic River. His film sneaks up, messes with your head, and then floors you. You can't shake it. It's that haunting, that hypnotic."[1]

[edit]Box office

Mystic River has earned $156,822,020 worldwide with $90,135,191 in the U.S. and $66,686,829 in the international box office, which is significantly higher than the film's $30,000,000 budget.[4]

[edit]Accolades

[edit]Awards

[edit]Nominations

[edit]Home media releases

The DVD was released on June 8, 2004 and 3 editions have been released:



The film has also been released on Blu-Ray Disc, both sold separately and as a part of the Clint Eastwood collection.

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