Urban Crime: as Portrayed in Mystic River

In the movie “Mystic River”, directed by Clint Eastwood it focuses on three boys that grew up in the streets of Boston. The urban environment that they grew up in as children directly impacted their lives, as they got older. One big universal theme of the movies was urban crime; the movie displayed both sides of urban crime (the corrupt side as well as the investigators and law enforcement, also known as the “good side”). All of the urban crimes shown throughout this movie relate to the way the boys lives played out. Within their urban neighborhood there existed such a closed social community that it is hard to believe that Jimmy Markum, Sean Devine and Dave Boyle came to grow apart at all, but the urban crime that was such a big part of their childhood and their community can be blamed for that. The first major crime portrayed in the movie was sexual abuse (and kidnapping). In general, sexual abuse as a child can cause people to become a certain way as an adult. In this case just one traumatic crime affected all three of the main characters differently. The one that was sexually abused ended up killing pedophiles because he didn’t want other people to have to go through the same fate as he had. It is actually very usual for children involved in crimes to either grow up to become the same way or to try and put a stop to the same crime. Another ended up living a life of crime and violence just like he had witnessed as a young boy. The third went on to become an investigator so he could help people and attempt to stop the growing rate of urban crime. When people are raised in a crime filled environment they are more likely to choose to live one extreme in their adult life; this is very commonly seen within urban areas. Another main part of the movie was Jimmy’s daughter, Katie, being murdered. This was important because it revealed two things about urban groups of people. In urban neighborhoods that have tight-knit communities like this, everyone knows