Gone Baby Gone, 3.5 stars
This is a long overdue review of Ben Affleck’s debut as a director: Gone Baby Gone. This is the second film of a Dennis Lehane novel, and while good, it does not reach the lofty heights of Clint Eastwood’s Mystic River.
The story is the fourth in the five-novel Kenzie/Gennaro-series, and this makes for an odd starting position. The only regular character featured, Bubba Rogowski, is very cursorily introduced, and remains pretty much an opaque plot device throughout the movie. All in all, I expect that the plot makes a little more sense when the inevitable “deleted scenes” are considered to be part of it, right now there are several lurching turns. Perhaps deliberately, perhaps not.
Casey Affleck in the starring role turns out to be much better than the first few scenes suggest. His interpretation is far whinier than Lehane’s original, but grows to be appreciated towards the end. The female lead, Michelle Monaghan, on the other hand, has sadly been toned down from the book, and she’s too much of a hanger-on for long stretches of the film. Amy Ryan’s oscar nomination from her role as the white-trash mother of the disappeared kid of the title is worthy indeed, she puts on such a performance that you’d expect her to have spent most of her days in a trailer park the arkansan boonies. It took me a while to figure out where she’s familiar from - the Wire, she’s the harbour cop in the second season.
Like most of Lehane’s books, the story is set in Boston. And like Mystic River, the scenery does not dwell on the brightly lit and well-known downtown areas. Nope, the environment is the proverbial wrong side of the tracks - Quincy and Dorchester, authentically decrepit and run-down.
And like most Lehane’s books, the characters are not that likable, and definitely not pleasant. Everybody is somehow damaged, or just bears some hefty emotional baggage.
The film’s release in the UK has been delayed by the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, and it will actually be minted on dvd well ahead of its big screen debut.
All in all this is a pretty good film, and I certainly wouldn’t mind seeing the other books of the series filmed either. Next in line is Martin Scorsese’s interpretation of Shutter Island, and I do not think that it will particularly lower the bar when it comes to movies based on Lehane’s books.
I haven’t seen the abomination that is Gigli, but this well-directed debut sure takes long strides in atoning for it.
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