Mystic River Reviews

The entire cast did a phenomenal job, resisting the urge to overact too much, which is what you get for a film like this.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

Powerful performances in graphic story. Only 16+.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

American drama doesn't get any more meaty and muscular than this.

Full Review | Original Score: A-

To say this is well-acted would be an understatement punishable by law; the acting talent during the film is just magnificent to watch as we see a great cast of great actors...

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

The performances are uniformly superb.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5

Good, occasionally powerful noir that's been overhyped.

Full Review | Original Score: B

Mystic falters occasionally, but I respect its effort and I'm happy to see Mr. Eastwood growing as a director.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

While not quite the equal of the novel, it's more complex, emotionally-charged and better acted than the average Hollywood thriller.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

With characters that don't belong in the film and resolutions that seem mere fantasy, Mystic River never surpasses adequacy.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

It is in many ways Eastwood's tightest movie for some time, and certainly his darkest since Unforgiven; indeed, the ending offers as corrosive an assessment of the limits of American justice as anything in his career.

Full Review

A sprawling story that benefits from Eastwood's stripped-down approach. There are no jive talking Tarantino exchanges here, and no crowd-pleasing pyrotechnics.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

This is one of the finer dramas to come down the pike in some time.

Full Review | Original Score: A

The film births wonderful performances from all three lead actors, as well as Marcia Gay Harden, who's palpable in preternatural ways, Thomas Guiry as the boy in love with Jimmy's daughter, and virtually everyone else with a strip of film time.

Full Review | Original Score: 84/100

It's a stately, handsome-looking studio drama that, for me, never really became emotionally or intellectually involving.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

... frustratingly humorless, harsh, and hollow, lacking the cohesiveness, color and convincing characterization of Eastwood's masterpiece Unforgiven.

| Original Score: B-

Penn and Robbins, especially, are absolutely riveting in this haunting tale of lives lost.

Full Review | Original Score: A

This is an involving movie that held my interest for all but the last five of its 137-minute running time, despite an ending that seems to tolerate murder and vigilante justice.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10

Methodical, riveting and emotionally charged.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

Sean Penn is so frighteningly good in this movie that he outdoes even the best of his earlier work.

Full Review

A fine movie but not the masterpiece you've heard.

| Original Score: B+