Mystic River really does not contain a hero, but the closest a character comes to portraying the hero would be Sean, the
police officer who eventually solves the
murder of the Markham girl. Since he is the hero in a modest fashion, the villain is basically presented in the same way. Those who play the villain’s role are the two children responsible for the Markham girl’s death. While it really was only a crime of coincidence they are still the antagonists responsible for the drama that takes place in this film.
The toughest role to classify would be Sean Penn’s role of James Markham, the father of the victim, but also what I would like to call the anti-hero. He is not the villain of this movie, but the actions taken by James to avenge his
daughter’s murder are more rash and harmful than the murder itself. He is the father of the victim and the victim, as well as her sisters are portrayed as the princesses that father will and is allowed to do anything necessary to ensure their protection. The helper in this role is James’ wife who tells him that no matter what he did (murder) it was right because it was what needed to be done in order for him to become king of the town.
The other two roles worth discussing in this manner are Dave and his wife, Celeste, who suspects Dave of killing the Markham girl and tells Jimmy in turn that he was the one who did it. She enables Jimmy to kill her own husband, who is innocent of the crime, but tries to help himself by admitting to Jimmy that he did kill the girl just so that his life would be spared.As the anti-hero Jimmy does have a mission in finding his daughter’s killer. He goes off to try and find the killer/killers before the police do. As stated before there are quite a few options in choosing who could have killed his daughter, but through the grapevine of communication in this small Boston community Jimmy is able to reach a conclusion that to the best of his knowledge Dave is the one who took his daughter’s life