Jimmy. Dave. Sean. Friends who grew up in working-class Boston, they drift apart after a terrible tragedy. Years later, brutal events reconnect them. Jimmy's 19-year-old daughter is coldly murdered. Dave is a suspect. And Sean, now a cop, scrambles to solve the crime before volatile Jimmy takes the law into his own hands.

Working from Brian Helgeland's adaptation of Dennis Lehane's novel, director Clint Eastwood shapes a masterwork, a brooding thriller built on family, friends and innocence lost. Sean Penn, Tim Robbins and Kevin Bacon play the pivotal threesome, joining Lawrence Fishburne, Marcia Gay Harden and Laura Linney in one of the most powerful casts ever. The river has many depths. Let it wash over you.