This entry was posted on Monday, October 22nd, 2007 at 3:59 pm and is filed under Drama, G, Movie Reviews, NEW ON VIDEO, Thriller/Mystery. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
Director: Ben Affleck
Starring: Casey Affleck, Michelle Monaghan, Morgan Freeman, Ed Harris, John Ashton, Amy Ryan, Amy Madigan, Titus Welliver,
Ben Affleck picked up a pen and, along with first time screenwriter Aaron Stockard, turned Dennis Lehane’s novel into a screenplay. Following this, in another first, Affleck got behind the camera instead of in front of it. So does the elder Affleck, who is box office challenged as an actor, have what it takes to be a director? The answer is a definite maybe. The direction is strong in this film, but the uneven, disjointed story tries too hard to be tricky, and could have been tightened with fewer characters and a better flow. There is some good writing here, though, and Affleck does a wonderful job capturing the neighborhood atmosphere that he was seeking.
Casey Affleck is Patrick Kenzie, a P.I. who, along with his life and business partner, Angie Gennaro (Michelle Monaghan from The Heartbreak Kid), specializes in finding people who have skipped out on “jet ski payments”. The pair is surprised and unsure when Beatrice and Lionel McCready (Amy Madigan and Titus Welliver) want to hire them to augment the search for their missing four-year-old niece by reaching people in the neighborhood ‘who don‘t talk to the police’. They reluctantly agree and soon find themselves taking a part in a dark tale about a young child with a crack ho mother, who went missing from the mean streets of Boston. Police chief, Jack Doyle (Morgan Freeman) and detectives Bressant and Poole (Ed Harris and John Ashton), grudgingly accept the help. I liked the first half of this story, but thought it became weaker in the second half, before partially redeeming itself with a haunting finish, that will draw out different opinions.
Gone Baby Gone tries to take a gritty Chinatown-style mystery and put it in a rough area of Boston. Some the of the story is engaging and some of the characters are interesting, but the story simply needed more development. There is potential here, and I just hope that Ben Affleck lets someone else handle the writing next time, and focus his own efforts on his directing, which shows alot of promise.
