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Mystic River would not be the experience it is without the raw powerhouse performance of Sean Penn, whose grief and rage are so forcefully expressed that they bring tears to the eyes. The image of Dave, looking forlornly through the backseat window as he is driven away, will haunt Jimmy and Sean to their dying days. Although a gulf of time has separated the lives of these men, that single childhood event has forged a bond nothing can sever. The added layer of complexity arises through the psychological depth of the characters and the importance of their past relationship. It is clear from the beginning that Mystic River has aspirations to be more than a conventional murder mystery. He is determined to find the murderer before the police so that he can mete out his own brand of justice. Meanwhile, as Sean begins the official investigation, Jimmy makes inquiries on his own. One of the chief suspects turns out to be Dave, who returned home late on the night of the murder with blood on his hands and an implausible alibi. Katie is found murdered, and Sean and his partner, Whitey (Laurence Fishburne), are the investigating officers. Then, one night, events bring these three old friends back into each others' spheres. Dave, who has never fully recovered from his abduction, has a wife, Celeste (Marcia Gay Harden), and a young son. Sean, a police detective for the Massachusetts State PD, is estranged from his wife. The eldest of these, Katie (Emmy Rossum), is the apple of his eye. Jimmy, a grocery store owner with a criminal background, is married to his second wife, Annabeth (Laura Linney), and has three daughters. Over the years, Jimmy, Sean, and Dave have grown apart. The bulk of the story takes place some 30 years later. As it turns out, the man is a pedophile, not a cop, and Dave is not seen for four days, after he escapes from his abductors. After intimidating them (they had been "defacing" public property by scrawling their names in wet cement), he forces Dave to get into the car, then drives off. A car drives up, and a gruff man gets out and identifies himself as a cop. When we first meet them in a quiet Boston suburb, they are kids playing street hockey. Those three characters are Jimmy (Sean Penn), Sean (Kevin Bacon), and Dave (Tim Robbins). This is a powerful tale of crime, guilt, and punishment - a drama that incorporates elements of whodunit mystery/thrillers and police procedurals with a richly textured three-character play. The script, written by Brian Helgeland, remains reasonably faithful to Dennis Lehane's novel. Absent from the screen but behind the camera for the first time since Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Eastwood concentrates all of his efforts on producing and directing, and the result is the Hollywood icon's best effort in nearly a decade. With Mystic River, Clint Eastwood has rebounded nicely from the failure of his mediocre previous effort, Blood Work.