Gone Baby Gone

Viewer Rating:Severian has rated Gone Baby Gone rating: 4 Star

I went to see Gone Baby Gone on the 6th of June, but it's taken me until now to sort out how what I felt about the movie. Perhaps that's symptomatic of the film's overall tone, who knows? Director Ben Affleck, in his first directorial effort, manages to prove that he can come up with the goods. After years of diminishing returns, pegged as he has been as a perennial underachieving actor when compared with his old pal Matt Damon, perhaps now he can begin to recover the acclaim he once received when the two of them turned in an Oscar-winning script for Good Will Hunting way back in 1997. Let's not forget, too, the impressive performance he gave as George Reeves, the original telly Superman in the film Hollywoodland. The plot for Gone Baby Gone is somewhat labyrinthine and for this reason lays itself open to accusations of being rather contrived, but is nonetheless entertaining for all that, and if you ask me if I would generally prefer a simplistic script as opposed to a multiplicity of plot strands, I'll go for the head-scratcher every time. :) At a certain point in this flick you might find yourself thinking “Is that it? That was a short movie”, but fear not – all is not over. This is merely a false ending, and from that point on things get less predictable, more morally ambiguous and thus more interesting. Casey Affleck is shaping up to be quite a capable actor, although I'm not sure that his baby-faced appearance, making him look much younger than he actually is, isn't something of a handicap. There are a couple of scenes in this film where his character, Patrick Kenzie, is forced to play the hard man in order to extricate himself and his partner from an awkward situation. I found this pose to be unconvincing, and felt compelled to laugh. I don't know whether this exposes an inadequacy in his acting abilities, or if he deliberately set out to play Kenzie as a man who is so uncomfortable doing such things as to seem visibly ill at ease, or if it's simply the fact that he just doesn't look like the sort of guy who would say “boo!” to a goose. Whatever the reason, I found his queasy, jittery performance in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford more compelling. Michelle Monaghan plays Kenzie's co-investigator, business partner and girlfriend, Angie Gennaro. She's very cute, looking rather like Sandra Bullock in the latter's early days, but less annoying. Angie embodies one of the film's moral foci, although the choice she makes at the end results in her seeming very unforgiving and therefore unsympathetic in my opinion. To be fair, though, when she and Patrick are offered the job of investigating the disappearance of the little girl at the beginning of the movie, she is extremely reluctant, as if sensing the turmoil, distress and ambiguity to come. Possibly the most striking performance in the film comes from Amy Ryan, as Helene McCready, little Amanda's mum. This is an actress I haven't really observed before, mainly appearing in TV series that I don't watch and in movies that I haven't as yet seen. Judging by her turn in Gone Baby Gone, it looks like I've missed out. Helene McCready is a thoroughly reprehensible, skanky “ho”, more interested in scoring drugs and self-gratification than in looking after her daughter. Perversely, she genuinely seems to love the kid despite being the sort of person who ought never to be allowed to raise a child. Amy Ryan's performance at times makes Helene hilariously amusing, at other times surprisingly engaging and, most often, cringingly unbearable. If this woman was on Tricia, or Jerry Springer, or any one of the plethora of confessional-porn car crash TV programmes that choke the schedules, she'd be a regular. This is really a star turn by Amy Ryan, and it's no surprise that she got an Oscar nomination for it. The child's uncle, Lionel McCready, played by Titus Welliver, initially seems to be a far more suitable candidate as a parent than his sister, of whom he is understandably critical. No angel himself, he owns up to his criminal past early in the film, but claims to be a reformed character. This is a nicely judged role as portrayed by Welliver, as there is something about him which doesn't quite ring true and therefore gives him an air of untrustworthiness. Morgan Freeman gives his usual measured, dignified performance as Captain Jack Doyle, fairly dripping with gravitas, and hence this role is not a million miles from the character he portrayed in Se7en. Please understand that I'm not criticising Freeman in saying this – what he does, he does very well. Not every actor can be a chameleon. Ed Harris is on memorable form here as the uncompromising, hard-bitten detective Remy Bressant, assigned by the Boston P.D. to find the missing girl. His performance is violent, kinetic and committed and is yet more evidence why this man is still getting work after more than 30 years in the business. One of the many attractions of the film is watching how his and his partner's opinion of Patrick Kenzie changes from initial contempt and minimal tolerance to an increasing respect as the case develops. Remy's partner Nick Poole is played by John Ashton, probably best remembered for his role as Sgt. Taggart in the Beverly Hills Cop movies. Here he gives solid support to Ed Harris as an old crony and sidekick, doing his best to jolly along reluctant witnesses and back up his partner at all times. Be aware that nothing is as it at first seems in this film, and that is especially true of most of the principal characters. There is no Manichaean, clear-cut black and white here – just many shades of grey. It's also fascinating to watch as Kenzie is gradually sucked into the murky underbelly of Boston as the case takes him to places that he would prefer not to go, both morally and physically. It seems to me that the cinema-going audience doesn't often get to see the city of Boston represented on screen, and the only other instance I can recall in recent years was Scorsese's The Departed. The location work in Gone Baby Gone is excellent, and shows us a seedy, run-down side of the city that I'm sure had the Tourist Board groaning. It makes a nice change from equivalent locations in New York and L.A., and I was further impressed by the cinematography on display in the scenes set at the flooded quarry. This film had its planned release over here pulled by the distributor, Buena Vista International, in the wake of concern over the film's thematic similarities to the Madeleine McCann case. It's true that Amanda McCready does bear some resemblance to Maddy, and is even portrayed by a child actress called Madeline O'Brien, but the filmmakers claim that the source material is a 1998 novel by Dennis Lehane, and filming took place in 2006, before the poor kid vanished. So don't be put off by fears that in going to see this flick you'll be giving your hard-earned groats to some sleazy cash-in. Gone Baby Gone is well worth seeing on the big screen, but somehow left me feeling hollow and to some extent disappointed. Having said that, it's refreshing to see a film that doesn't feature easy, neat plot resolution – real life isn't like that and it becomes irritating to constantly have things presented that way on film. You will feel compelled to make a moral choice at the end of the film, just like Angie and Patrick – I found myself siding with Casey's character, and found (as I said before) his girlfriend's stance unsympathetic. After all, there should be one law for all, or else there is no law. But your mileage may vary. If Ben Affleck can keep coming up with material like this, he's going to be a force to be reckoned with as a director.

Review published on the 19 June 2008 13:47