We bury our sins, we wash them clean.
When Jimmy Markum's (Sean Penn) daughter is found murdered, his childhood friend Sean Devine (Kevin Bacon) is assigned to the case. His personal life is unravelling, Sean's investigation takes him back into a world of violence and pain he thought he'd left behind. It also puts him on a collision course with Jimmy Marcus - a man with his own dark past who is eager to solve the crime with brutal justice. And then there is Dave Boyle (Tim Robbins), a man who hides monstrous secrets beneath a bland façade - secrets his wife, Celeste, is only beginning to suspect. As the race for a killer heats up, all are pulled closer toward an abyss that will force them to face their true selves - and will mark them as irrevocably as the past itself has.
Special Agent Matti
Mystic River is Stand by me if everyone grew up in the city. It's also a bit like a movie length episode of Law & order.
Tim Robbins is intense in a Rainman sort of way while Sean Penn pulls out the stops in a Tom Cruise kind of way. Kevin Bacon keeps his clothes on. Clint Eastwood's direction is good.
MA 15+ (Medium level violence, adult themes)
137 minutes (2:17 hours)
Film: 20 November 2003
