Mystic River

Mystic River is an Academy Award winning Hollywood film. The film was released in 2003. It was a Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Kevin Bacon, Laurence Fishburne, Marcia Gay Harden, Laura Linney and Emmy Rossum starrer, based on a the novel by Dennis Lehane. Clint Eastwood directed Mystic River. For the film Sean Penn won Best Actor while Tim Robbins won Best Supporting Actor in Academy Awards. Mystic River was critically acclaimed and was a huge success

Mystic River revolved round three childhood pals, Jimmy, Dave, and Sean. All of them grew together in working class Irish district in Boston. They were all ten years old when Dave was kidnapped, while playing in the street, by pedophiles and was sexually abused for four days. As the story gradually proceeds, the three friends grow up. Now they have their own families and still lives in the same place. Jimmy, played by Sean Penn, is now an ex-con running a neighborhood store. Dave, played by Tim Robbins, is a blue-collar worker. His abduction still haunts him. Jimmy's young daughter Katie (Emmy Rossum) is murdered. Jimmy and Sean played by Kevin Bacon, suspect Dave to be the murderer. Sean is now a detective with the Massachusetts State Police. Sean’s wife has left him and has taken their baby daughter along with her. She calls him frequently but does not speak to him.

In the climax of Mystic River, they get Dave drunk. Jimmy follows him and tells him, he will leave him if he confesses that he has murdered Jimmy’s daughter. Dave finds no other option to save himself and confesses. Jimmy kills him then and there and disposes his body in the Mystic River. Next morning, while Jimmy is sitting sad with a bottle of whisky, Sean comes to tell him that the actual murderers have been caught and have confessed the crime. One of the criminals is her boyfriend’s brother. She had been killed when a prank went violently wrong. Sean says that he is searching Dave to be questioned for another case. Gradually it has been revealed that Dave has actually killed a pedophile, when he has found him with a child prostitute in a car. At a parade Dave's wife Celeste tries to get the attention of her pessimistic son Michael (Cayden Boyd). In the parade, jimmy is spotted by Sean. He makes a gun with his hands and “shoots” Jimmy with it. Jimmy wears his sunglasses. The movie ends with the note that Sean knows by instinct that Dave has been killed by Jimmy. And Jimmy is more than confident about the fact that Sean will never try to prove that Jimmy is guilty as he is not at all willing to do so. Wikipedia

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