10 Movie Scenes That Do So Much Without Actually Saying Anything
5. Sean's Finger Gun - Mystic River
Clint Eastwood's Oscar-winning drama Mystic River ends with Jimmy Markum (Sean Penn) killing his friend Dave Boyle (Tim Robbins) after he admits to killing Jimmy's daughter Katie (Emmy Rossum).
However, it turns out that the traumatised Dave was effectively coerced into giving a false confession, and Katie was actually killed by two young boys during a prank gone wrong.
It's made clear that Jimmy and Dave's fellow childhood friend Sean Devine (Kevin Bacon), now a Detective, is aware of what Jimmy has done, and in the final scene set during a parade, silently lets Jimmy know that he's not going to forget it.
As the two men stand on opposite sides of the parade, Sean takes a look at Jimmy and points a "finger gun" in his direction, to which Jimmy offers up a quizzical shrug.
Rather than make the audience sit through a prolonged confrontation between the two that sets the stage for a future conflict, it's made perfectly clear from this interaction that the situation is far from over.
Sean's going to be watching Jimmy intently from now on, and may one day try to get justice for Dave.