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Mystic River Director: Clint Eastwood Jimmy: Sean Penn Dave: Tim Robbins Sean: Kevin Bacon

You know it took a while, a long while. The first three quarters of this year produced very few movies that rose above "entertaining". Hell going into October there were only three movies I had seen which I would qualify as great, Phone Booth, X2 and Dirty Pretty Things(T3 came close). Then came Kill Bill. It blew everything away and was my lock for movie of the year...that lock lasted an entire week. Mystic River is THE best picture of 2003 so far. Better than Lost in Translation, better than Th13teen, better than Phone Booth and, yes, better than Kill Bill.

Mystic River takes you on an emotional ride through a small neighborhood and a murder which brings very ugly memories, and even uglier futures. I won't go over the plot, cause really it's pointless. Plus I don't wnat to spoil anything although it really doens't matter. This aint about a big twist ending or a big shoot-out ending, Mystic River's ending is just another step in life and it's heart wrenching getting there.

I must first commend the great Clint Eastwood(one of the most underrated movie makes of our time IMO). This movie features no quick cuts or camera tricks. No special effects or action set pieces. It features realism(and soemtimes graphic realism), it features real characters gonig through troubles and trying to find real solutions. Eastwood has a sure hand in all this and stages the film perfectly. Not one shot is wasted and it is all Eastwood's vision, all the way down to the beautiful score.

The acting, just by the actors names, you know is good. But I never expected it to be this good. Sean Penn wins the Oscar already with his performance. If he is not rewarded with the best actor statuette it's ultimate proof of the Academy's bias and BS. Penn is gut wrenchingly powerful in the early part of the film but in other parts is coldly sadistic but with a reason and thus even in his more sadistic scenes there is a sense of truth and tragedy towards Jimmy, making this Penn's greatest performance of his great career.

Tim Robbins puts in, arguably although only Shawshank comes close, the best performance of his career as his lack of emotional range fits perfect for Dave's traumatic state. Laura Linney, Marci Gay Harden, Laurence Fishburne and Kevin Bacon provide ample support to the leads making this the best ensemble cast of the year.

Overall there isn't much to say about Mystic River except this will move you and it will make you feel. It could possibly be classified a Shakesperean tragedy rewritten in modern time. The guilt, the revenge, the inner struggle it's all there. The acting is the best of any movie this year. But in the end this is Clint Eastwood's movie and, as he always does, Eastwood "makes our day" by making the best picture of 2003.

****3/4(out of 5*)

It's funny because only 3 weeks ago I saw "Scarface" for the 1st time and then last week I saw "Traffic" for the 3rd time. And now I see "New Jack City". Out of the three "New Jack City" is the worst, but that by no means implies that it is a bad movie. But just for a fact there aren't too many drug related movies even in the same league as "Scarface" or "Traffic".

In this review I will not use "Traffic" for any comparison because the two films are completely different. But "Scarface" on the otherhand is almost an exact replica of "New Jack City", except it came out 8 years earlier. Both movies are about how a guy starts out on the bottom, works his way to the top and goes overboard falls back down in the drugworld. It's nearly the same movie except you have Wesley Snipes as Nino Brown, instead of Al Pacino as Tony Montana.

The plot in this isn't anything you probably haven't already figured out. Picture "Scarface" except this time there more emphasis on the cops played by Ice - T, Judd Nelson and Mario Van Peebles. But for those who haven't seen either movie here's a short rundown. Nino Brown is a small time hood who along with his partner and best friend Gee Money (Allen Payne, in a role strikingly similar to that of Steven Bauer in "Scarface") gets a tip on something called crack cocaine. Three years later Nino has become the god of the drug world and is above the law. His life is perfect until police officer Stone(Van Peebles) gets Scotty Appleton(Ice - T) and Nick Peretti(Judd Nelson) to head up their own case on Nino. That's the basic plot and you figure out the rest yourself.

One thing that puts "New Jack City" aabove an average gangster movie is the acting. Snipes is excellent(this still stands as the best performance of his career), Ice - T has never been, and considering how many direct-to-video stinkers he's been in recently, and never will be better and Chris Rock explodes onto the screen stealing every scene he's in. Well to be honest every peroformance is great except for Nelson, who in my opinion gave his character to moral centre at all and seemed lost the whole movie.

So comparisons to "Scarface" aside and little problems aside, "New Jack City" is a good movie and a top notch gangster movie. 7/10

Brian De Palma's remake of the 1932 classic "Scarface" nearly drowns in excess at times, but flourishes from it at other times. None of this is surprising considering Oliver Stone wrote the script. But this movie has to also be considered one of the bravest films of all time.

I won't say much about the plot which is pretty standard when it comes to gangster movies. It's about cuban refugee Tony Montana's(Al Pacino) rise and fall in the drug world. Eventhough other characters come and go, notably wife Elvira(Michelle Pfeiffer), best friend Manny(Steven Bauer), boss Frank Lopez(Robert Loggia) and sister Gina(Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, this is basically Montana's/Pacino's show.

In "Scarface", Al Pacino is at his over-the-top best as Montana. Whether he's burying his face into a pile of coke, shooting someone point blank in the head or refusing to kill two small children Montana always seems like a real, deep character. He's a ruthless business man and killer, but he also has an honour code, He'll become a drug addict as long as his sister doesn't ect. But what really makes this film work is how visibly Monatana evolves from a young hothead looking to get rich, to a burnt out, paranoid addict who has it all and wants even more.

I have heard a lot of arguments as to whether "Scarface" belongs in the company of "The Godfather" and other gangster classics. Well in my opinion it does. If not for being very original or deep, but for having enough balls to go further than any other gangster movie, plus for having one of the most brutal antihero/villains in history. Oh yah and don't forget it's 206 uses of the F-word third mot in history(After Pulp Fiction and what I consider the best gangster movie of all Goodfellas). Great study in excess and brutality. 9/10