Eastwood's big Oscar hit after "Unforgiven", that other masterpiece directed by Dirty Harry himself. "Mystic River" is based on the bestselling novel by Dennis Lehane and it has an incredible cast. The main leads are for Sean Penn, Tim Robbins and Kevin Bacon. Furthermore we have Laurence "Morpheus" Fishburne, Laura Linney and Marcia Gay Harden. The movie itself is very dark and sober without much music. The story is brilliantly written and the acting is without any doubt superb.
I'm glad Sean Penn finally won an Academy Award, he's a brilliant actor and he certainly deserves the recognition. Tim Robbins was good as well, but I think Benicio del Toro should have won the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. His performance in "21 Grams" was much more superior to Robbins' performance in "Mystic River". Anyway, that's just what I think. Kevin Bacon was excellent as well and he is one of the most underrated actors of his generation. Marcia Gay Harden and Laura Linney were good as usual.
Although I very much enjoyed this movie, it didn't exactly turned out to be the masterpiece I was expecting. But that's maybe because this was only the first time I watched it. Anyway, I'm still looking forward to see Eastwood's masterpiece of this year: "Million Dollar Baby". But this movie is absolutely worth seeing as well.
8,5/10
