|
OFCS Rating: 84% Fresh |
|
A | "This is one of the finer dramas to come down the pike in some time." |
| FromTheBalcony |
| Bill Clark |
A- | "While restrained and internal throughout most of the film, Penn displays both chilling intensity and heart-wrenching grief when it really counts." |
| AboutFilm.com |
| Carlo Cavagna |
A- | "American drama doesn't get any more meaty and muscular than this." |
| ColeSmithey.com |
| Cole Smithey |
| "Sober and imposing, Clint Eastwood's Mystic River spreads over the screen with a sense of purpose." |
| PopMatters |
| Cynthia Fuchs |
3.5/4 | "Eastwood's screen adaptation of the famous Dennis Lehane novel is one of the year's most well-made dramas." |
| Cinemaphile.org |
| David Keyes |
3/4 | "When a murder mystery stars Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, and Kevin Bacon you're gonna have a hard time picking the killer. Eastwood directs without a trace of showiness." |
| Movie Boeuf |
| David N. Butterworth |
B+ | "A lot more effective than most similar cop thrillers that go only for the conventional bang-bang
scenarios." |
| Ozus' World Movie Reviews |
| Dennis Schwartz |
| "Mesmerizing filmmaking." |
| ReelTalk Movie Reviews |
| Donald J. Levit |
2/4 | "A melodramatic murder-mystery that is as uneven as its outcome is anticlimactic." |
| TheMovieBoy.com |
| Dustin Putman |
4/4 | "A somber evocation of a poor, close-knit section of Boston on the brink of moral collapse." |
| Slant Magazine |
| Ed Gonzalez |
B- | "A compelling film that could have been a classic with some judicious editing in the end and a rethink of the climax." |
| FilmJerk.com |
| Edward Havens |
A- | "As an emotional rumination on death and its aftermath, it is gripping." |
| EricDSnider.com |
| Eric D. Snider |
4/4 | "A virtuoso achievement for everyone involved whose final credits actually read “Music by Clint Eastwood”. If a more apropos coda could exist, I couldn’t think of one." |
| eFilmCritic.com |
| Erik Childress |
B+ | "I am so accustomed to inventing "angles" for my reviews that a movie like this threatens to flummox me. It defies all angles and conventional approaches." |
| Film Blather |
| Eugene Novikov |
A- | "Complicated, enigmatic and haunting...easily Eastwood's best film since 'Unforgiven,' and one of the most compelling pictures of the year." |
| One Guy's Opinion |
| Frank Swietek |
| "A tense murder-mystery that finds director Clint Eastwood on familiar ground exploring themes of good and evil, guilt and innocence, anger and revenge." |
| Spirituality and Practice |
| Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat |
4/4 | "A tale of tragic misinterpretation, Mystic River requires deep focus into the multiple tortured souls to fully be harnessed." |
| eCinemaCenter.com |
| Gabe Leibowitz |
B+ | "If Euripides had ever known Catholic guilt, he might have written something quite similar to Mystic River." |
| Mixed Reviews |
| Gabriel Shanks |
3.5/4 | "A powerful tale of crime, guilt, and punishment." |
| ReelViews |
| James Berardinelli |
3.5/4 | "A deeply felt, haunting work that ranks among Eastwood's best films..." |
| Q Network Film Desk |
| James Kendrick |
4/5 | "Clint Eastwood's best film since Unforgiven is another look at murder, death and the good in men that can die long before they do." |
| Netflix |
| James Rocchi |
3.5/4 | "Dark, brooding, and suffused with appreciable anguish, Clint Eastwood’s moody screen-telling of Dennis Lehane’s sensational 2001 crime novel is an eloquent and significant thriller." |
| Palo Alto Weekly |
| Jeanne Aufmuth |
9/10 | "A modern epic tragedy, where the weight of everyone's actions are felt from conception to enactment." |
| Window to the Movies |
| Jeffrey Chen |
8/10 | "A leisurely paced, intense, gloomy but ultimately, fulfilling motion picture." |
| JoBlo's Movie Emporium |
| JoBlo |
3/4 | "Mystic falters occasionally, but I respect its effort and I'm happy to see Mr. Eastwood growing as a director." |
| Big Picture Big Sound |
| Joe Lozito |
8/10 | "Mystic River explores the quirks of fate that make us who and what we are." |
| DVDTown.com |
| John J. Puccio |
4.5/5 | "Robbins and Penn in particular give simply fantastic performances that defy description - it is the kind of work you have to just sit back and feel." |
| Cinerina |
| Karina Montgomery |
1/5 | "And I take a page from Ann Miller and say it's all a load of horse-puckey." |
| ToxicUniverse.com |
| Keith Uhlich |
2.5/4 | "There is a solid story here, but it’s weakened by heavy-handed dialogue, strained symbolism and subplots that don’t got anywhere." |
| Montreal Film Journal |
| Kevin N. Laforest |
A | "Eastwood and his perfectly cast ensemble have added layers that give this blue collar multi-generational tragedy Shakespearean scope. It is one of those rare films that surpasses the impact of the book." |
| Reeling Reviews |
| Laura Clifford |
3.5/5 | "If [Eastwood] were a more subtle director, it would be a great film; as it is, it's an extremely good one, anchored by the subtly devastating performances of Penn, Robbins and Bacon." |
| TV Guide's Movie Guide |
| Maitland McDonagh |
2/4 | "An apprehensive cross between an elegiac tone poem of loss, an ever-twisting murder mystery, and a character study revolving around the regret of lost innocence, Mystic River tries to be all of these things and ends up falling short on all counts." |
| Mark Reviews Movies |
| Mark Dujsik |
3.5/4 | "Mystic River is refreshingly adult; Eastwood doesn't pander to a younger crowd" |
| Movie Habit |
| Marty Mapes |
| "[A] stunning mediation on loss..." |
| Flick Filosopher |
| MaryAnn Johanson |
4/5 | "Everyone in the cast is brilliant. Everyone." |
| Goatdog's Movies |
| Michael W. Phillips, Jr. |
4/4 | "This is the kind of film that slowly gets under your skin, drawing you more intimately into the sad existence of the characters." |
| Aisle Seat |
| Mike McGranaghan |
C | "It wants to be a big, serious movie. It has big, serious star power and big, serious themes. There are moments of power and flickers of meaning but it is ultimately hollow and unsatisfying." |
| Movie Mom at Yahoo! Movies |
| Nell Minow |
5/5 | "A grande tragédia do filme é que nenhuma daquelas pessoas é fundamentalmente má; elas apenas tomam decisões erradas que geram uma série de mudanças tristes em suas vidas." |
| Cinema em Cena |
| Pablo Villaca |
| "'Mystic River' is an ambitious failure but it is, ultimately, a failure. It is a shame because there are a lot of little things that I liked about it even as the big things never quite added up." |
| Critic Doctor |
| Peter Sobczynski |
1.5/5 | "Plodding, emotionally inert, overlong, badly framed, inappropriately scored and polluted with an ensemble who try to outdo each other with bad performances." |
| Film Threat |
| Phil Hall |
4.5/5 | "This is mature, meaningful, thoroughly grown-up filmmaking that has something vitally important to say about the expanding effects of violence in society." |
| Shadows on the Wall |
| Rich Cline |
5/5 | "The performances are uniformly superb." |
| eFilmCritic.com |
| Rob Gonsalves |
B+ | "Mystic River may only be 'pretty good,' but thanks to Eastwood, it's a reminder of how great 'pretty good' should be." |
| Flipside Movie Emporium |
| Rob Vaux |
B | "While a commercial film is more about entertainment, this is more about, for want of a better term, art." |
| Laramie Movie Scope |
| Robert Roten |
A- | "This victims-of-circumstance crime yarn betters the book in a number of ways" |
| Reeling Reviews |
| Robin Clifford |
2/5 | "Slowly trudges through the motions of a tired whodunit, saving its dramatic juices for a blowout finale that never comes." |
| Filmcritic.com |
| Sean O'Connell |
8/10 | "This tense, gripping character study is a cleverly complex, powerful and original American tragedy. Clint Eastwood once again displays an astonishing visual sense. Problem is: it's too obvious whodunit." |
| www.susangranger.com |
| Susan Granger |
2.5/4 | "There's something to the tribal primitivism of the picture, the idea that man at his essence is composed of balanced portions of nobility and violence." |
| Film Freak Central |
| Walter Chaw |
3/4 | "With characters that don't belong in the film and resolutions that seem mere fantasy, Mystic River never surpasses adequacy." |
| Oscar Guy |
| Wesley Lovell |
| "Click here to see review" |
| Wolf Entertainment Guide |
| William Wolf |
|
OFCS Rating: 84% Fresh |
|
