Starring: Kevin Bacon, Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Laurence Fishburne

What’s it all about?
Jimmy, Dave, and Sean are best friends and playing in the streets of Boston, when Dave is taken away in a car by two strangers. Time passes and they all grow up to lead their own lives – each shaped by that day all those years ago.

Jimmy (Penn) had at one time turned to a life of crime, but has left his prison days behind; Sean (Bacon) has grown up to be a police officer; and Dave (Robbins) is married to Jimmy’s cousin, and is still troubled by the four days he spent with his captors as a child.

To say any more than that would be giving too much away. I wouldn’t usually worry about spoilers for a movie as old as this, but you really should go out of your way to see it.

Watching it with the kids…
Mystic River is quite a violent movie, and there is a fair amount of bad language throughout. But those things aside, this is a thematically dark and lengthy film, so it’s unlikely that the little ones will want to sit down in front of the TV for it anyway.

Verdict…
This is a slow burner, so if you’re looking for bullets a-flying and constant action you won’t get it here, but Mystic River had my attention from beginning to end. I can’t fault any of the central performances either. Despite appearing in some excellent movies, I’ve never really rated Robbins much as an actor, and Penn often comes off as a fan doing a De Niro impression, but they both work for me here. Bacon is reliable as always. Minor gripe about the reveal aside (and it really is minor), this is one of the best movies I have seen for a while.

Recommended (highly) ↑