Mystic River

Went with my mom and grandma.  As we were entering the theatre a lady asked us find her to answer a questionaire as we were leaving.  She also said that she'd seen the movie the day before and said she couldn't figure out who the lead actor was.   And you know what?  Neither can I.

My mom has a fairly poor opinion of Clint Eastwood's adaptations.  But she said he did a decent job with this one.

It's hard to describe this movie.  It's sort of a whodunit.  I guess more about three young friends, one of whom suffered abduction and abuse.  Years later, they've mostly sort of gone their separate ways, a couple still sort of in touch.   Kevin Bacon is a cop, Sean Penn is a gang leader, and Tim Robbins basically never completely recovered from the incident as a kid.  Penn's daughter is killed at the beginning of the movie.  Tim Robbins saw her at a bar earlier that night and then comes home with blood all over him.

Part of the movie is learning about some of the history of the neighborhood.  The relationships between the main characters and some of the other people.  They kind of spread it out, and you could tell there was a lot more history than they showed.   That kind of kept you wondering all along what was coming up.  Because the cops were the ones turning it up through their investigation all of it was at least tangentially related to the crime.

As a bit of a side issue, Penn's gang members are also running their own investigation.   So his influence is always just beneath the surface.

The movie basically has a coupla stories building to a climax simultaneously, and you aren't entirely sure how it's really gonna play out.  It was a fairly effective way to keep the audience guessing.

Oh, yeah, the questionaire was just asking what beers were used in the movie.  I can picture a coupla spots where they had beer cans, but since I don't drink beer I can't recognize what brand it was from those glimpses.

On my brother's Total Movie Value Scale, Matinee with Dinner.  Who's the lead in this movie?

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