2003, R, 137 minutes

In a time where it seems like every other movie is either based on some comic book or features a few hundred special effects shots, Clint Eastwood continues to champion the style of old Hollywood, when movies were more about telling a story than showcasing a spectacle and a lot of undeserving hype. With his latest effort, an uncompromised and gut-wrenching film called Mystic River, Eastwood is at the top of his game and proves you don't need a big budget to make a movie of epic proportions.

Unlike most of the films he's directed, Eastwood does not play a character in Mystic River, and there's no reason he should considering he already has so much talent to work with. Sean Penn gives one of the finest and most complex performances of his career, playing a father with a shady past whose daughter is needlessly murdered. Kevin Bacon plays a detective investigating the case, and Tim Robbins is a guy who lives nearby and is battling some serious demons of his own, but what ties the three together is that they all grew up in the same neighborhood and were profoundly changed by a single, horrific event. So what does the past have to do with a film centered around a murder? Well, everything and absolutely nothing at the same time.

Based on the novel of the same name by Dennis Lehane, what makes Mystic River brilliant is how it gradually digs deeper into the story, revealing bits and pieces of information and taking us somewhere we would never anticipate in a million years. How these seemingly coincidental kernels of truth are relevant is unknown until it all culminates in a dramatic and truly disturbing finale. The tone of the film is so jarring because you never quite know who you can trust and what they've done and what their motives are, which is paralleled by the cold and relentless cinematography. Mystic River hits you in the mouth and never lets up, tying your stomach in knots along the way. There are several opportunities in which Eastwood could back off a little, to give us a chance to relax and take a breath, but he doesn't stop pressing until the credits role, as if to say, "these are the facts, so live with it." It's really, really brutal.

It's not my intention to make you dread seeing this film because it's so depressing -- hard movies certainly have their place, especially when they're as well crafted as this one. In the end, Mystic River makes for a fascinating examination of how the past can affect the future in so many different and sometimes irrelevant ways; whether or not we should be held accountable for the results is a question you can't really answer, only learn from.