Mystic River

Jimmy, Sean and Dave loose their last hockey ball down a drain. Whilst pondering whether to "borrow" a car for a spin around the block Jimmy scratches his name in wet cement on the sidewalk as does Sean Dave however only manages DA before they are interrupted by cop. He forces Dave into his car to take him home to his mother...four days later Dave escapes from his abductors but is never quite the same guy.

Thirty ish years later the boys are grown up and not really friends but brought together by the murder of Jimmy’s eldest daughter.

This new film from Clint Eastwood wearing his Director Only hat is one of his best. It has strong characters living within a powerful story of community, family and friendship.

Sean Penn leads the story as Jimmy a father and reformed criminal, his sense of loss and wish for revenge drive and control many of the characters around him, and it is because of this that Kevin Bacon’s Sean, now a policeman, feels a sense of urgency in discovering the young girls killer, before Jimmy and his associates take their own form of justice on whom they believe to be the killer!

Poor Dave seems to have been left some what incomplete by his experience as a boy, like his name on the sidewalk he is half finished as a man. The tragedy brings him closer to his to boyhood friend who now has a sense of loss akin to his own, but Dave is hiding a secret and his bruised hand is bringing unwanted questions...

I had heard little about this film before seeing it but people are talking it up as Eastwood’s best work since The Unforgiven, for which he won Oscars and critical acclaim. This is a film that will make you think about the defining moments in your life and the choices that lead you to where you are. This film will be pushing for awards Penn’s performance as Jimmy is one of his best in years and Eastwood should get recognition for a Masterpiece.

See this film at your earliest opportunity.

Pip Johnstone