by MATTHEW HAYS

It's been both sad and tempting to write off Clint Eastwood as a director in the past few years. If you had to sit through Space Cowboys, you'll understand precisely what I mean.

That's why Mystic River is all the more astonishing and pleasing. Set in Boston, the film opens with a horrific crime perpetrated against a young boy. Years later, the boy has grown into Tim Robbins, and he and his childhood friends (cop Kevin Bacon and Sean Penn) are still haunted by their youthful trauma. Then, Penn's 19-year-old daughter is found murdered. Bacon is brought in to investigate.

Seeing as Robbins was sexually assaulted as a child, both the police and we, the audience, sense that he may well be the culprit. But naturally, things are never quite as they seem, and Eastwood keeps the suspense taut throughout the entire movie.

Mystic River has an incredible amount going for it. In particular, each actor, especially Robbins and Penn but also Marcia Gay Harden, who plays Robbins' tormented wife, turn in unbelievably intense and believable performances. Penn, as a shattered father who's lost his daughter, is profoundly moving, while Robbins is devastating as the adult survivor of child molestation.

A depressing trend in cinema of late has been the gotcha! ending. Audiences are supposed to be surprised and shocked by last-minute catches, in which nothing is quite as it first seemed. Frankly, these catch closures have become grating and tedious. Another point in Eastwood's favour is the way in which he builds tension here: there's nothing cheap about it. In fact, we can see the outcome a mile away. The point isn't a faux ending-instead, the plot feels organic. It's the performances, and the horrific lead-up to the film's final turns, that undoubtedly make this movie one of the very best of the year.

Some have also spoken of the irony that the former Dirty Harry would make such a powerful cautionary tale about vengeance. He's already done so, of course, with his Oscar-winning Unforgiven. With Mystic River, Eastwood has returned to that calibre of filmmaking.

Mystic River is now playing

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