Thriller - Mystic River

Mystic River is a thriller movie directed by Clint Eastwood. It was initially released in the USA in 2003 and features Sean Penn who won the Academy Award for best actor, Tim Robbins who won the Academy Award for best supporting actor, Kevin Bacon, Marcia Gay Harden and Emmy Rossum.

Sean (Kevin Bacon) and Jimmy (Sean Penn)

The opening scene relates the kidnapping of a kid, Dave Boyle, who was playing with two friends. He is sequestered a couple of days. But the film takes place a long time after this tragedy, when boys have become men. One night, Dave (Tim Robbins) comes back home with blood on his hands and tells his wife that he was mugged by a man that he may have killed. However, his wife (Marcia Gay Harden) doesn't find any news about the man in the newspaper. Both keep it secret.

The following day, a young woman's car is discovered, filled with blood. The girl, who is Jimmy Markum's daughter (Emmy Rossum), is found dead and more precisely murdered. The father (Sean Penn), who was one of the chilhood friends of Dave and also his brother-in-law, wants to kill his daughter's murderer before the police finds the latter. Actually, the detective who takes up the girl's case (Kevin Bacon) is the third boy of the beginning. Therefore, the three boys find themselves together again in this strange situation.  

All the movie is based on these two mysteries, which seem very close. The investigation concentrates little by little on Dave, but is he really the culprit  ? That's the question. 

The movie is considered as a thriller (and a very good !) for differents reasons. 

First, the central protagonists who are Jimmy, Dave and Sean face death. Jimmy faces the death of his daughter, Dave faces the death of the man who has killed and also his own death. Sean faces the death because he is a detective.

Then, the main storyline for the protagonists is a quest : find the culprit. Sean tries with the investigation's way whereas Jimmy is intent on finding him before, in order to kill him and avenge his daughter. He's helped by two bad guys of the family. Dave, for his part, wants to hide what he has done and not to be considered as guilty. Dave is very vulnerable but it doesn't seem that Sean and Jimmy can be put down.

The main plotline focuses on a mystery : the mystery of the woman's death. Who and Why ? Until the end, we don't really know who is the murderer, even if we make some suppositions.

Moreover, the film's narrative construction is dominated by the protagonists' point of view. We follow the police enquiry thanks to the Sean's point of view. A large part of the movie is filmed with the Jimmy's point of view to show how he tries to take revenge on the culprit for the murder of his daughter. The Dave's point of view is also very important in order to increase the tension because he's very scared and feels uncomfortable all the time.
The characters are very realistic in their representation on screen. The father's reaction when he learns his daughter's death is very natural and his mourning too. The attitude of Sean, who is detached and involved at the same time, is exactly the behavior of a policeman. They're not superheroes and Dave, who has made a very good deed, protecting a boy from a pedophile, isn't the heroe that everybody applauds but he's a simple human, "the boy who escape from wolfs".
Sean, as a policeman, wants to find the culprit and bring him to court. Jimmy, as a father, want to avenge his daughter but it's a personal justice.

At first, I didn't know which movie to choose because even if I love thriller books, I don't know so much thriller movies o series. Mystic River was in the teacher's list and as I love the director Clint Eastwood, I was directly attracted to the film Mystic River. During the week-end, I watched him with a friend in english with english subtitles and I found it so interesting, moving and exciting. And, of course, with a lot of suspense!

BARTON FINK

   
This Cohen brothers movie, Barton Fink, was released in 1991. It's could be considered like a comedy and a drama, it was nominated for 3 oscars and the star actors who play into are John Turturro and John Goodman. The title character, played by John Turturro, is a Broadway playwright, based on Clifford Odets, lured to Hollywood with the promise of untold riches by a boorish studio chieftain. Staying in the eerie Hotel Earle, Barton develops severe writer's block. His neighbor, jovial insurance salesman Charlie Meadows, tries to help, but Barton continues to struggle as a bizarre sequence of events distracts him even further from his task.

   Joel and Ethan Coen are two brothers. Both were born in Minneapolis in Minnesota (USA). Joel in 1954 and Ethan in 1957. Joel has been married and has one child. Ethan has been married too but he has two children. They are producer, writer and director and they did a lot of films together. Combining thoughtful eccentricity, wry humor, arch irony, and often brutal violence, the films of the Coen brothers have become synonymous with a style of filmmaking that pays tribute to classic American movie genres, especially film noir. 

   John Turturro is a very talentued actor. He was born in 1957 in Brooklyn in NY and he became fascinated by movies during childhood. He began with theatre but I played small roles during a decade but his breakthrough performance was in the movie Do the Right Thing in 1989 with Spike Lee.
In 1991, the Cohens cast him as the titular Barton Fink, a performance which garnered Best Actor honors at the Cannes Film Festival.
 In 1992 he wrote and directed a little-seen indie feature that won him a Golden Camera award for Best First Feature at the 1992 Cannes Festival
In 1998, the actor again collaborated with both Lee and the Coen brothers, working with the former on He Got Game and the latter on The Big Lebowski.
Also in 1998, Turturro wrote, directed, produced, and starred in Illuminata, a comedy. 
He was casted by others producer and played a lot of roles (small roles or lead roles)
In 2004 he worked for Spike Lee yet again in She Hate Me. In 2005 he wrote, directed, and acted in the blue-collar musical Romance & Cigarettes.
In 2011 he would join the Pixar family voicing Lightnin' McQueen's.

 John Goodman proved himself both a distinguished character actor and engaging leading man. A native of St. Louis, MO, Goodman went to Southwest Missouri State University on a football scholarship, but an injury compelled him to seek out a less strenuous major. He chose the university Drama Department. Moving to New York in 1975, he supported himself by performing in children's and dinner theater, appearing in television commercials, and working as a bouncer. He contributed topnotch supporting appearances to such films as Everybody's All-American (1988), Sea of Love (1989), Stella (1989), and Arachnophobia (1990), and starred in such films as King Ralph (1991), The Babe (1992), Born Yesterday (1993), and The Flintstones (1994). Goodman did some of his best work in Matinee (1992)
Goodman appeared on series.
He also voiced the part of Baloo in The Jungle Book 2's (2003)