Mystic River: Clint's Irish Epic

Somebody says Clint Eastwood, and the majority of people think either of the spaghetti western "man with no name" he played for sergio leone, or the macho detective "Dirty Harry" he played for don siegel, but it's not that clint we are talking about know, it's the other Clint the masterful director.

Mystic River is about a lot of themes, but it starts with a frightening one, Child Abuse, little Sean, Jimmy and Dave, are playing hokey on the street, then they find a square of cement pavement which is still undry, and decide to write their names on it, but as Dave is writing his name, they are scolded by what apparently are two police officers, who then show them some police ID and take dave with them in the back of their car.

Turns out these two are pedophiles, and they take little Dave to the basement of a house, where they rape him, at the end he manages to escape, then the movie shifts to nowadays Boston, nobody has moved, Dave (Tim Robbins) is a past possessed blue colar worker, struggling to rise the child he has with Celeste (Marcia Gay Harden) Sean (Kevin Bacon) is a detective in the local police, and Jimmy (the great Sean Penn) is an ex con running a local business, and has a daughter Katie, who is secretly dating a man he despises.

Katie is savagely killed, and while Sean and his partner take care of the case, the grief ridden Jimmy investigates from his side using his connections in the Area, turns out that Dave is involved in a suspicious accident the night of the murder of Katie which leaves him with a bloody hand, Sean finds that the gun used on the murder has links to Jimmy's past, while Jimmy becomes more and more suspicious of his former friend, which leads to the movie's end, with a lot of justice, and injustice, and answered questions, and buried ones.

This movie is about the violent loose of innocence, and about the consequences of one's childhood on their adulthood, it's about paternity, about vengeance, in the Irish community of Machassussets, and it's also about communication, and lack of communication in the couple, and the disastrous results it might have.

Some scenes from this movie are now cinema classics, especially because of the powerful acting of Sean Penn which earned him an oscar, but Tim Robbins is great as the angst ridden Dave (which earned him an Oscar too), and you will really leave this movie with a bittersweet ideas about what matters and what doesn't, and why it does matter.

and it's for movies like these that Clint Eastwood is such a legend, because has managed to become a great director after being an iconic action hero, and with honour in both, and if you don't agree with that, tell me the name of another seventies action hero, who got a special award to honour him this year, and who makes better and more energeticmovies at early Eighty years then people half his age, he should have his picture next to "living legend" in Wikipedia !

Jebbiness 3.5/5