Mystic River: Deluxe Edition
 Mystic River,
Clint Eastwood's rumination on the lasting effects of violence, is a spare, thoughtful
film -- one that might almost be considered slight, were it not for the power of the
performances the director extracted (or was given) from its superlative cast.
In its broad outline, the film is the story of an
investigation into the murder of Jimmy Markum's (Sean Penn) daughter, Katie (Emmy Rossum),
but things aren't that simple. Jimmy is one of three old friends, the others being Dave
Boyle (Tim Robbins) and Sean Devine (Kevin Bacon). Flashbacks inform us that one day,
while the three boys were playing together, Dave was abducted and sexually molested by two
men posing as cops. The event left its mark on all three -- Dave wanders the streets late
at night, searching for peace; Jimmy has spent some time in jail, but seems to have
settled down to a peaceful family life; and Sean has become a police officer, the one
assigned to investigate Katie's death.
Jimmy can't deal with the tragedy of his daughter’s
murder. He unravels, and enlists a hoodlum posse to look into the crime, while Devine and
his partner (Laurence Fishburne) plod their way through the procedural channels. Dave
Boyle turns out to have been the last person to have seen Katy alive; this, along with a
bruise on his hand, causes everyone to wonder whether he's the culprit.
This sounds like melodrama, and it’s not -- primarily
because of the quality of the acting. Sean Penn is perhaps the most spectacular, giving
the believably tough Jimmy an equally believable vulnerability -- and of course, Penn's
trademark is his ability to flesh out seemingly unsympathetic characters. However, Tim
Robbins finds depths in Dave Boyle that go far beyond the cliché of the walking wounded
-- lost in his quarter-century-old wounds, he can't find any way back to a normal life.
Kevin Bacon gets a thankless role -- he plays the
"normal" guy just doing his job step by step, without flash or overt dramatics,
even if it means he has the unpleasant task of suspecting his old pal of a heinous act.
Bacon pulls this role off with very skillful underplaying. Perhaps not surprisingly, this
"less is more" approach to acting reminds us of another screen icon: director
Clint Eastwood.
Eastwood's trademark restraint is this film’s
hallmark. Other directors might have gone for more flash from the high-caliber ensemble.
Think about it -- Penn, Robbins, Bacon, Fishburne, Laura Linney (who'd be a spectacular
Lady Macbeth), even Eli Wallach (in an uncredited cameo), are all on the screen, and not a
stick of scenery gets chewed. Very few directors can exert this sort of control -- or
perhaps there are only a few who would want to.
Eastwood, however, has pared his own acting style down to
the essentials. In his last few outings as director, he has used the same scalpel to
whittle away almost everything that isn't necessary, including flashiness and hyperbole.
This draws us deeper into the characters than into the plot -- and that's the right
choice, in my opinion.
This is most apparent in the look of the film, which is
dark, almost washed-out. The transfer on this DVD was accomplished at a fairly high bit
rate, so it's true to the original film, as is the 2.13:1 (anamorphic) aspect ratio. The
black level is deep, deep, deep -- perhaps disturbingly so to some viewers, because in
many scenes it's almost opaque.
The sound is immersive, although perhaps not spectacularly
so, probably as a result of the film's non-soundstage location-recording origins. However,
Mystic River is unusually dialogue-centric; there aren't tons of opportunities for
surround or LFE spectacles, other than the lush surround treatment given the film's
minimalist score, which is credited to Clint and Kyle Eastwood.
Disc 1 of this Deluxe Edition contains an audio
commentary by Kevin Bacon and Tim Robbins that spends a lot of time fawning over their
director and fellow actors -- although Robbins, who directed Penn in Dead Man Walking,
does offer some welcome insights into technique, not only of screen acting but of
directing as well. I found it amusing that the commentary track has long silences where
the two actors are distracted by the action onscreen -- understandable, under the
circumstances.
The whole point of a multi-disc "deluxe edition"
is to offer supplementary materials that expand on the film experience itself. In this, Mystic
River is a disappointment. Disc 2 is almost completely superfluous: "Mystic
River: Beneath the Surface" is a 23-minute puff piece that’s almost 100%
surface; a 12-minute featurette, "Mystic River: From Page to Screen,"
uses footage from interviews that appeared in "Beneath the Surface" (?!); and
three interviews (with Eastwood, Robbins, and Bacon) from The Charlie Rose Show
that aired between October and December 2003. The interviews run nearly two hours when
played sequentially; they’re fine, but less than riveting. Disc 2 also features the
teaser and theatrical trailers. Disc 3 is a full-length CD of the film score.
After the fantastic job the Criterion Collection did with The Leopard, I expected the three-disc expansion of Mystic
River to deepen the already extraordinary impact of the film itself. That did not turn
out to be the case, and I now wish I’d bought the single-disc edition, which I'm
reasonably certain is identical to disc 1 of the Deluxe Edition. That's
essential, and worth your money -- and time. Too bad I can't say the same about the Deluxe
Edition's extras.
...Wes Phillips
wes@onhometheater.com
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