Country:
USA
Recognizable Faces:
Casey Affleck
Michelle Monaghan
Morgan Freeman
Ed Harris
Amy Ryan
Michael K. Williams
Directed by:
*sigh*...Ben Affleck
Kids should read the Patrick Kenzie stories in school. Instead of making them hate The Great Gatsby and Catcher In The Rye because they are too young to appreciate it, they sould read the stories of the gritty, horny Boston PI, his female partner (and love interest) Angie Gennaro and his psychopath sidekick Bubba Rogowitz. Maybe then kids would love reading. That's how solid of a character Patrick Kenzie is and no, even Ben Affleck can't stop his mojo.
Gone Baby Gone is the story of the McCready family. Little Amanda (Madeline O'Brien) vanished into the night, at the dismay of her cokehead mother Helene (ryan), her uncle Lionel (Titus Welliver) and her aunt Beatrice (Amy Madigan). No one wants to make a big case out of it, except for Beatrice who alerts the police, the media and...Patrick Kenzie (Affleck Junior), private investigator. Patrick & Angie are reluctant to take the case at first, but they end up accepting an throwing themselves into the heart of darkness, to paraphrase Joseph Conrad. The darkness in Dennis Lehane's novel is the one of Dorchester and its hard working citizens who live with their fair share of secrets.
Ben Affleck's directorial debut has one thing going for itself, its faithfulness to the original story. Gone Baby Gone is a good adaptation from Dennis Lehane's novel, if not a bit straightforward and lazy. Affleck sticks to the path, he doesn't use cinematography to enhance Lehane's story in any way. In fact, every risky choice he makes breaks the magic a little bit. Bubba is a tremendous character and despite rapped Slaine doing a decent job, I would have liked him hacked from the movie rather than having this useless role. Same thing for Michael K. Williams as Devin Amronklin. It's a surprising, yet pleasant choice, but only those who read the novel know who he is and what is his importance.
Other than the cast choice, very few things shine above Lehane's story. Affleck follows the tale step by step, using the cinematic equivalent of declarative sentences. Patrick went there. Patrick did that, yelled at the guy, shot the other, etc. There is no clever use of editing or groundbreaking musical input. The reason why the movie is so good is that the story is riveting at the first place. Any given Dennis Lehane story is a gut-wrenching drama that explores the dark areas of human psyche.
I'm one of those "don't watch the movies if you can read the book" guys. For some movies, it's an equal or different experience, but as good as Gone Baby Gone can be, it's still inferior to Dennis Lehane's novel. The trademark psychology and the emotional complexity of the famous Bostonian writer are absent, except for voice-over monologues that are few and far between. If it's unlikely for you to pick up and read a novel in your life, watch it rather than watch a stupid explosion flick. If you're the type of person that reads The Da Vinci Code in the bus, make an effort and go buy the novel.
Score: 70%
