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Anyone see this? It's supposed to be the top dog dramatic movie of the year.
I have to say, it does have some pretty good acting. And directing. A very strong trio of actors pound this one out with style. Unfortunately, the script falls seriously flat at the end, I felt. You know the score, Tim Robbins gets seriously sexually abused as a child and escapes from a cellar, but he never ACTUALLY escapes, and later, when his friend's daughter is brutally murdered, he becomes a prime suspect.
Spoilers. Don't read this unless you really, really want to.
So Sean Penn, under the impression that Tim Robbins has killed his daughter, corners his old friend with his mafiosos out back behind a bar and he says, "You confess, and I let you live. You don't, and I kill you." But Dave, (Tim Robbins) against everyone's expectations, actually hasn't killed Jimmy's (Sean Penn) daughter. But he says "Yeah, I did it," to save his life. Sean Penn then proceeds to cut his stomach open and shoot him in the head.
So he killed an innocent man. And his friend. And then, what, you say? Jimmy, having played out the classic roles of a tragedy, is arrested, and must suffer the consequences of his actions?
Nope. He gets away Scot Free. And his wife, violating common sense and decency, reinforces his act, saying that doing something in the name of your family is ALWAYS good. Even if he's innocent. Her character really isn't too developed up until now, so she comes out of nowhere and says this. And Jimmy is relieved to hear this, and this apparently assuages his conscience, because he then has sex with his wife. Very guilt-wracked. Later his wife watches Dave's distraught and lonely wife and son incompassionately during a parade. But that's okay, right? Killing Dave was the right thing to do, right?
The ending seemed to ruin a huge tragic build up. I heard some kind of garbage about how, by killing Dave, they washed their hands of Dave's molestation, and their guilt. I never heard of getting rid of guilt by killing the guy you wronged. Maybe that's new. Kevin Bacon, the cop, turns his head to the whole deal, and lets Dave's murder go unavenged. There's a very ambiguous gesture between him and Jimmy at the end, during a parade. That's up for grabs. No one really knows what it means.
So, in the end, the main themes I got out of it are: Sean Penn and his wife are assholes, and Tim Robbins just Can't Get A Break. Maybe that's just me.
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