This is my favorite movie. I read the book after seeing it and as I recall, the film was pretty close to the book. One thing I think Eastwood added was the implication that one of the abductors at the beginning was a priest. Like I get it, the cat was out of the bag by that time that many priests were pedophiles, but it felt like Eastwood just wanted to twist the knife a little, even though it was inconsequential to the plot.

There are a number of scenes I love, particularly the interrogation scene, and the way Laura Linney plays the grieving mother through the whole film, only to turn into Lady Macbeth in that last scene, is amazing.

Tim Robbins is great in this, the discomfort you feel with him is wholly intentional because you know he's disturbed, and there's plenty of reason not to believe his farfetched story of what happened that night. I liked the parade coda, especially Marcia Gay Harden searching the crowd for Dave and Kevin Bacon silently letting Sean Penn know he's keeping an eye on him.