Gone Baby Gone, directed and co-written by Ben Affleck (Smokin’ Aces), is a thoughtful and mesmerizing drama and an early front-runner for the Academy Awards’ Best Picture of the year.
No, seriously.
The only time Affleck ever wrote a film script before, he won an Academy Award with Matt Damon for Good Will Hunting. Since then, though, his career has slowly gone downhill due to a combination of overexposure (Bennifer) and bad movies (Gigli), so much so that Affleck had pretty much disappeared until his quietly sad and solid performance in Hollywoodland. Now, with the excellent Gone Baby Gone, Affleck is putting himself back on the map.
Adapted from a Dennis Lehane novel, Gone Baby Gone shares many themes and sensibilities with the last Lehane film adaptation, Mystic River. For example, crime against children is the opening subject here (as it was in Mystic River), as young Amanda (Madeline O’Brien, The Legend of Lucy Keyes) is kidnapped from her home in Boston while her mother Helene (Amy Ryan, from HBO’s The Wire) is allegedly across the street.
Soon, it turns out Helene may not have been across the street after all. To find Amanda, who may have the sleaziest mother around, private detectives Patrick (Ben’s younger brother Casey Affleck, Ocean’s Thirteen) and Angie (Michelle Monaghan, Mission: Impossible III) are brought onto the case, much to the chagrin of investigators Capt. Jack Doyle (Morgan Freeman, Evan Almighty), Remy Bressant (Ed Harris, Copying Beethoven) and Nick Poole (John Ashton, best remembered as Sgt. Taggart from Beverly Hills Cop).
Given Helene’s shadiness, things get complicated quickly and we discover there is much more going on than a simple kidnapping.
Surprisingly, the film is an incredible full-length directorial debut for Affleck, who shows an impressive sense of patience and simplicity with his work, in a way somewhat similar to Clint Eastwood’s style. Affleck seems interested in the little details of scenes – such as two men barbecuing next to Helene’s house while the police and press swarm around it – but even when depicting violence, Affleck’s shots don’t seem cheap or superfluous. Instead, Affleck has a way of framing the big stunner moments for maximum visual effect.
It’s also a remarkable writing job by Affleck and first-time co-writer Aaron Stockard. The two must have deleted a lot of content from Lehane’s lengthy book to come out with such a tight script (there is no unnecessary content in this mystery), but credit goes to Lehane for creating such well-rounded and diverse characters. And the film juggles many moral issues – proper justice for pedophiles, family values, etc. – without forcing anything on the audience.
And while Gone Baby Gone doesn’t have as many A-listers as Mystic River did with Sean Penn and Tim Robbins, it does come close to having performances that are just as remarkable. Most impressive is Harris as the hardened Bressant; his performance has moments of can’t-look-away intensity. And despite his small frame, Casey Affleck can intimidate – his mellow delivery and distant look are good disguises for the intensity that lies within.
Put simply, Gone Baby Gone is moving and shocking. This year, it is the best film to date, and thanks to genuinely sincere performances, surprising twists and turns and an enigmatic ending, Affleck should be proud.
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