10 Great Movies That Were Almost Ruined By Bad Editing

Clint Eastwood's adaptation of Dennis Lehane's novel of the same name, Mystic River, was lauded by critics as a haunting masterpiece, with Sean Penn and Tim Robbins winning Oscars for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor respectively - the first film that scooped both awards since Ben-Hur in 1959.

Robbins went on record as saying that Kevin Bacon also deserved credit for his part in the movie, but despite strong performances from the whole cast the film was actually far from perfect. To call Mystic River a bad film wouldn't be correct - it's a great film, an emotionally-charged story stripped to the bare bones and methodically executed - but it's a film that was badly put together.

Chop Shop director Ramin Bahrani said as much on stage when discussing Eastwood's film in 2006, citing one particular cutaway that stuck in his throat. When a gun goes off indoors, the next shot is of the bullet hole in the ceiling, something he cited as a lazy choice in editing. We know the gun went off, so the shot of the bullet hole is pointless, almost misleading. Did the bullet hit someone upstairs? Apparently not, as it was never mentioned again.

The film is littered with excess shots that add no value, and even some of the more important scenes are flawed, with crew members visible in reflections from certain angles and coffee mugs changing in colour between cuts.

Editor Joel Cox might have also done well to either include more footage of Jimmy's wife Annabeth earlier in the film or chop her speech at the end of it considerably, as her over-the-top, Lady Macbeth-esque attempt at justifying her husband's murderous actions seem misplaced. The much-maligned scene would have achieved the desired effect had the character's feelings on the matter been alluded to at all earlier in proceedings, but as it was, her supposedly poetic outburst was cringe-worthy.