Mystic River

Mystic River is a 2003 American neo-noir crime drama film directed and co-produced by Clint Eastwood, and starring Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Kevin Bacon, Laurence Fishburne, Marcia Gay Harden and Laura Linney. The screenplay, written by Brian Helgeland, was based on the 2001 novel of the same name by Dennis Lehane. It is the first film in which Eastwood was credited as composer of the score. In addition to being a critical and commercial success, Mystic River was nominated for six awards at the 76th Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor for Penn, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Supporting Actress for Harden, and Best Supporting Actor for Robbins. Penn and Robbins won in their respective categories, making Mystic River the first film to win both awards since Ben-Hur in 1959 and last until Dallas Buyers Club in 2013. Plot In 1975, Irish-American friends Jimmy Markum, Sean Devine, and Dave Boyle are playing street hockey in Charlestown, Boston. After deciding to write a mural of their names on a patch of wet concrete, two men, claiming to be police officers, kidnap Dave and sexually abuse him for four days until he escapes. Twenty-five years later, Jimmy is an ex-convict and neighborhood convenience store owner; Sean is a detective with the Massachusetts State Police whose pregnant wife Lauren recently left him, and Dave is a blue-collar worker continually haunted by the abduction and rape he suffered. Jimmy and Dave are related by marriage, Dave's wife Celeste and Jimmy's second wife Annabeth being cousins. Jimmy's daughter from his first marriage, Katie, plans to run away to Las Vegas with Brendan Harris, a boy from a family Jimmy despises whom she has been secretly dating. One night, Dave sees Katie and her friends at a local bar. That same night, Katie is murdered, and Dave comes home bloodied and injured. He tells his wife that he fought off a mugger and possibly killed him. Sean and his partner Whitey Powers investigate the murder while Jimmy, distraught at his daughter's death, conducts a separate investigation using his neighborhood connections.