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Mystic River...is it good?

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effzee

Member
i just watched this movie and i cant decide wether i liked it or not.

i mean its well done with tons of emotion, its just that i dont know how i sit with the tragedy near the end. i know we all complain about movies having hollywood endings but this one was really sad and i wish it had a formulaic hollywood ending.
 

XS+

Banned
I wasn't too impressed with the plot, and the ending kinda turned me off. Excellent performances though.
 

effzee

Member
spoilers below:

so its implied at the end that kevin bacon will arrest jimmy right? when he askes "u gonna pay 500 dollars to celest now also?" and then at the parade he does the wink and the gun.
 

Tortfeasor

Member
Didn't like it... It is one of those stupid stories built around a simple misunderstanding that could have been easily resolved in about 3 seconds in real life.
 
Anyone know how closely the movie follows the book? I'm wondering if it's worth watching.

Jimmy's never going to get caught, at least based on how smart the book makes him out to be. The wink & the gun was more symbolic gesture (imo)
 

nitewulf

Member
effzee said:
spoilers below:

so its implied at the end that kevin bacon will arrest jimmy right? when he askes "u gonna pay 500 dollars to celest now also?" and then at the parade he does the wink and the gun.

*spoiler*
no. there is no proof. the crime will be forgotten. tim robbins was a "loser" whom no one will remember in a few months. life will go on.
*spoiler*
 

nitewulf

Member
if you focused on the predictable story then you lost the point. it wasnt about a murder mystery, its more about relationships and people changing over time. basically how time affects us.
and the characters played perfectly, brilliant stuff.
the "murder mystery" is just a tool to bring the characters and their relationships into focus.
 

chinch

Tenacious-V Redux
great flick... should have won best picture. the non-hollywood ending causes some mixed emotion obviously.
 
I thought it was overhyped. Great performances like everyone is saying, just was not impressed with the plot.

Also,
what was the deal with that woman who kept calling kevin bacon and wouldn't talk? I think her name was lauren or something.
 

sefskillz

shitting in the alley outside your window
this movie really worked a number on me, emotionally. i dunno if it was the mood i was in or what. it should be noted that im a total sucker for noir pictures. i had a lot of problems with it that i'm not going to get into, but overall i liked it quite a bit.
 

effzee

Member
spoiler:


how is there no proof of what happened to dave? his wife can assest to the fact that she believed he killed katie and told jimmy, shortly after which dave disappears. and then jimmy all but admits to bacon's charactert that he killed dave. bacon also knows about "harris" and his disappearance. im going to continue on believing it all meant jimmy would be put in jail. if this movie was just about how people change over time...it didnt show much...yes the three drifted apart...they were what like 13 when they were friends. happens all the time with friends at that age. hell i dont even talk to most kids i was friends with at 13-14. whats it supposed to teach us? he took revenge on an innocent man and gets away with it?

i guess the movie was pretty damn good, its just that it actually angered me when dave died cause i was expecting a hollywood esque save. and dave wasnt a loser IMO, more like haunted from what happened to him.
 

andthebeatgoeson

Junior Member
effzee said:
i just watched this movie and i cant decide wether i liked it or not.

i mean its well done with tons of emotion, its just that i dont know how i sit with the tragedy near the end. i know we all complain about movies having hollywood endings but this one was really sad and i wish it had a formulaic hollywood ending.
Dude, I walked away thinking the same thing. Ho hum movie.
 

nitewulf

Member
*spoiler*
well, i didnt call him a loser, that was how he was portrayed. of course he became that way due to horrible things that had happened to him.
the proofs that you pointed out are all circumstantial, he has too much backing. see he is the hotshot of the community and he can pay off people who will swear that at the time of the murder he was somehwere else. he has that power. he is basically the gangster of that town.
aside from that, everything else you pointed out is subjective, you are free to dislike it because he is getting away with it. he isnt supposed to be a likeable guy, but rather a bad man, who tries to be decent and got the wrong man for his revenge.
*spoiler*

i suggest watching monster's ball and swingblade as well.
 

effzee

Member
next on my list were:

cold mountain and 21 grams.

im trying to watch most of those late dec releases nominated for oscars. the ones that seem perfectly manafactured for the nominations.
 

Socreges

Banned
Stick to Disney if you require happy endings in order to like a film.

I was expecting Dave to live. He didn't. That was a little crushing, but it made the film all the more real.
 

open_mouth_

insert_foot_
effzee said:
next on my list were:

cold mountain and 21 grams.

im trying to watch most of those late dec releases nominated for oscars. the ones that seem perfectly manafactured for the nominations.

both very solid movies. Enjoy.
 

XS+

Banned
nitewulf said:
if you focused on the predictable story then you lost the point. it wasnt about a murder mystery, its more about relationships and people changing over time. basically how time affects us.
and the characters played perfectly, brilliant stuff.
the "murder mystery" is just a tool to bring the characters and their relationships into focus.

No, the point of the movie was that people don't change. Jimmy didn't change. It's not that he reverted to a thug; he was ALWAYS a thug. Robbins' character was always a mopish loner.
 

Socreges

Banned
Assuming that people that haven't seen the film are reading the thread...

I thought it was pretty significant that he pretended that he had killed Katie, thinking Jimmy would spare his life. That goes back to the fact that he always puts a face on for everyone, while deep down he's a completely different person. If he had been himself, and told the truth, he probably would have survived.
 

nitewulf

Member
XS+ said:
No, the point of the movie was that people don't change. Jimmy didn't change. It's not that he reverted to a thug; he was ALWAYS a thug. Robbins' character was always a mopish loner.
i meant more along the lines of how boys turned into different types of men due to the events that happned in their adolescence.
tim robbin's character wouldnt probably have turned out this way were he not molested. also i dont know if jimmy was a thuggish kid, they all seemed like reglar kids.
 
Great acting, shitty plot, shitty ending, and I dont think jimmy is going to jail. The wink and gun didnt give me that feeling, it made it seem more like he was saying "you da man" or some shit. which pissed me off.

ending made me wanna piss on the movie.

but great acting performances all around.

Cold mountain = good movie but its kinda geared more towards the chicks.

never seen 21 grams.

peace
 

Socreges

Banned
Fixed2BeBroken said:
Great acting, shitty plot, shitty ending,
I've read some threads on this board and several at IMDB. It's a love or hate movie. This really does give me the impression that those who hated the movie just didn't like the empty ending. That nothing was properly resolved and the wrong person died. You've got to take more from film than that, I think.

and I dont think jimmy is going to jail. The wink and gun didnt give me that feeling, it made it seem more like he was saying "you da man" or some shit. which pissed me off.
You can't be serious? The "wink and the gun" was definitely intended to suggest that they'd be coming for him. Probably not Sean himself, but the other cop who has no emotional attachment.
 
Socreges said:
You can't be serious? The "wink and the gun" was definitely intended to suggest that they'd be coming for him. Probably not Sean himself, but the other cop who has no emotional attachment.

i dont know. it didnt make sense. if that was the case, he would have got him earlier during thier conversation.

but seems like the cop just "Swept it under the rug"

peace
 
Socreges said:
Assuming that people that haven't seen the film are reading the thread...

I thought it was pretty significant that he pretended that he had killed Katie, thinking Jimmy would spare his life. That goes back to the fact that he always puts a face on for everyone, while deep down he's a completely different person. If he had been himself, and told the truth, he probably would have survived.

Haven't seen the movie, but in the book he did try and tell the truth, Jimmy thought it was a crock of shit, told him to just admit what he did and he'd let him live. So Dave did, and was killed anyway.
 
Fixed2BeBroken said:
i dont know. it didnt make sense. if that was the case, he would have got him earlier during thier conversation.

but seems like the cop just "Swept it under the rug"

peace

Yeah, the wink and gun suggests he'd be coming after Jimmy, or that Jimmy would get his comeuppance sooner or later. But not necessarily for Dave's murder... kind of hard to arrest someone without a body.

If Jimmy's returning to his criminal life, he'd eventually make a mistake, and Kevin Bacon's character will be there to catch him.
 

Socreges

Banned
Luscious LeftFoot said:
Haven't seen the movie, but in the book he did try and tell the truth, Jimmy thought it was a crock of shit, told him to just admit what he did and he'd let him live. So Dave did, and was killed anyway.
No, that's what happened in the movie, too. He tried to tell the truth. THEN Jimmy gave him the ultimatum. Admit it and live. Otherwise, die. It was probably a trick, right? If he had kept true, he would have been spared. Jimmy was just going to the greatest lengths to test him. He didn't realize that Dave had been living a lie for most of his life, and lying then would be no problem if it meant survival.
 
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