Review of Mystic River (2003) by Stevenz. — 24 Sep 2007

The most overrated movie of all time. Hideous, offensive, and soul-destroying. The kind of movie that tells you life sucks and everything's awful, and then fakes the evidence. Every plot twist is rigged and unbelievable, every line is ponderous and humorless, and the experience leaves you thinking there's nothing that can be accomplished in life.

And don't blather to me about the "powerful acting." The best performances in this movie--the fine, quiet work done by Kevin Bacon, Laura Linney, and Laurence Fishburne--were, of course, the least acclaimed.

All the praise and Oscars went to the overdone hamming of Penn, Robbins, and Marcia Gay Harden (who, to be fair, was given nothing to play but scaredy-cat.) It was embarrassing seeing the great Ms. Linney trying to make that bogus Lady Macbeth scene at the end believable.

One of those movies that's trying to impress you rather than tell a story, which you're supposed to learn a lesson from. "Life sucks" is not an original message, nor one that will come as a great surprise to many people, but overpraised hack directors always seem to think they're doing something daring by trotting it out.