Review of Mystic River (2003) by Merve B — 29 Nov 2010

The last fifteen minutes are utter, unbelievably horrendously idiotic shit. So often it seems Clint Eastwood knows how to set up an intriguing plot and interesting characters and really draw the audience into a movie, but then he flounders with trying to tie it all together and end it properly. And I'm not angry at the depressing nature of the ending. My beef is with the shoddy writing with far too many plot holes and stupid, stupid fucking characters. There's a slew of things I could point out, but what really stands out is the amateur police work. One DNA test between the blood in Dave's trunk and the dead girl would have averted everything that happened. Hell, there's a number of oversights that any basic police investigation would never have missed. Sloppy, poor writing.

And then there's the host of despicable characters. Who to hate most? Marcia Gay Harden's character for misleading a grief-stricken man? Seriously, her actions make no sense. What did she think would happen? Sean Penn's character for showing no remorse after learning the truth? Kevin Bacon's character for covering it up? Laura Linney's character for condoning it? You just wanna kill these people. But really, if the plot wasn't executed so poorly towards the end, I wouldn't have minded so much. However, because it is, they just become further annoyances.

For the record, I never liked the Greek tragedies either. Again, I hate stupid characters.