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Posted this review of Gone Baby Gone yesterday, but didn't get around to reproducing it here until now. My apologies to anyone who's already read it; it was littered with typos and the like that I couldn't fix until today.
Gone Baby Gone
Anyone who's seen any significant number of movies is bound to catch themselves trying to compare one to another as they watch them. We inevitably try to ascertain the moral or message of the story -- or whether or not there even is one -- before it's spelled out for us.
Gone Baby Gone, however, refuses to be pegged. The audience is alternating made to believe that the film is about despair, redemption, and agonizing choices, as layer upon layer is stripped away, revealing an increasingly complex plot that takes on a new meaning and gives the film a new message with every reveal.
Directed and co-written by Ben Affleck in his first trip behind the lens, Gone Baby Gone stars his brother, Casey Affleck as Patrick Kenzie, and Michelle Monaghan, who plays his partner and significant other, Angie Gennaro. Together, they form a team of informal missing persons detectives. As the film opens, they learn that a little girl in their neighborhood named Amanda is missing, and it isn't long before members of Amanda's family come knocking on their door asking for help. In this neighborhood, there are lots of people who know lots of things, and lots of them won't talk to the police. Patrick and Angie are from the area, though, and lots of people will talk to them.
Because a little girl's life is at stake, tensions run high from the get-go, and Patrick and Angie are met with a great deal of hostility early in their investigation. The area they're traversing, however, is a rough one, and it's hard to tell whether the resistance they're met with is standard fare, or whether it means they're onto something big. What they do know is that every moment they fail to find Amanda, the odds of finding her alive drop even further.
In a nice twist on the standard crime formula, the police involved in the investigation actually work with Patrick and Angie. They are understandably distrustful, but they never devolve into the paranoid, jurisdiction-obsessed caricatures that we've grown so accustomed to seeing in these sorts of stories. They are three-dimensional characters with experiences and motivations of their own which illuminate all of what they do, though most of it we won't understand until later.
Roger Ebert stated, in his review of this film, that "certain clues are planted in plain view. We can see or hear them just fine. It's that we don't know they're clues. No glowering close ups or characters skulking in a corner to give the game away." His description is perfect; Gone Baby Gone does not follow standard movie conventions, which would use camera angles and musical cues to tell us which lines of dialogue are important. Instead, we receive them in real-time, just like Patrick and Angie, and they don't always make sense right away. Nothing is highlighted for us, and so we feel the enormity of the information and the many possibilities that Patrick and Angie must sift through to get to the truth.
I would be remiss if I failed to mention the supporting actors, which are one of the film's strongest points. Morgan Freeman plays the head of the Crimes Against Children department with a certainty and purpose that can only come from having lived the worst-case scenario of these sorts of investigations. Ed Harris and Nick Poole play two of his detectives assigned to provide Patrick and Angie with assistance throughout their investigation. Poole is believable as the good cop, and Harris is superb as the bad. They skillfully replicate the chemistry and rapport of a longtime duo.
This is a potentially career-altering effort from both Afflecks. Casey Affleck shows considerable range, and his brother Ben considerable skill behind the camera, even if he does heighten the tension with some absurdly loud gunshots at times. Ben co-wrote the screenplay with Aaron Stockard, which was based on a book of the same name, and which is apparently Affleck's favorite. His affection is noticeable; the elder Affleck paints in all the corners, and shows a refreshing dedication to fleshing out the supporting characters.
Well-acted and much smarter than your typical crime drama, Gone Baby Gone is a promising debut, full of well-drawn supporting characters and enough confidence to know which questions to answer, and which to let us ponder for ourselves.
Anyone who's seen any significant number of movies is bound to catch themselves trying to compare one to another as they watch them. We inevitably try to ascertain the moral or message of the story -- or whether or not there even is one -- before it's spelled out for us.
Gone Baby Gone, however, refuses to be pegged. The audience is alternating made to believe that the film is about despair, redemption, and agonizing choices, as layer upon layer is stripped away, revealing an increasingly complex plot that takes on a new meaning and gives the film a new message with every reveal.
Directed and co-written by Ben Affleck in his first trip behind the lens, Gone Baby Gone stars his brother, Casey Affleck as Patrick Kenzie, and Michelle Monaghan, who plays his partner and significant other, Angie Gennaro. Together, they form a team of informal missing persons detectives. As the film opens, they learn that a little girl in their neighborhood named Amanda is missing, and it isn't long before members of Amanda's family come knocking on their door asking for help. In this neighborhood, there are lots of people who know lots of things, and lots of them won't talk to the police. Patrick and Angie are from the area, though, and lots of people will talk to them.
Because a little girl's life is at stake, tensions run high from the get-go, and Patrick and Angie are met with a great deal of hostility early in their investigation. The area they're traversing, however, is a rough one, and it's hard to tell whether the resistance they're met with is standard fare, or whether it means they're onto something big. What they do know is that every moment they fail to find Amanda, the odds of finding her alive drop even further.
In a nice twist on the standard crime formula, the police involved in the investigation actually work with Patrick and Angie. They are understandably distrustful, but they never devolve into the paranoid, jurisdiction-obsessed caricatures that we've grown so accustomed to seeing in these sorts of stories. They are three-dimensional characters with experiences and motivations of their own which illuminate all of what they do, though most of it we won't understand until later.
Roger Ebert stated, in his review of this film, that "certain clues are planted in plain view. We can see or hear them just fine. It's that we don't know they're clues. No glowering close ups or characters skulking in a corner to give the game away." His description is perfect; Gone Baby Gone does not follow standard movie conventions, which would use camera angles and musical cues to tell us which lines of dialogue are important. Instead, we receive them in real-time, just like Patrick and Angie, and they don't always make sense right away. Nothing is highlighted for us, and so we feel the enormity of the information and the many possibilities that Patrick and Angie must sift through to get to the truth.
I would be remiss if I failed to mention the supporting actors, which are one of the film's strongest points. Morgan Freeman plays the head of the Crimes Against Children department with a certainty and purpose that can only come from having lived the worst-case scenario of these sorts of investigations. Ed Harris and Nick Poole play two of his detectives assigned to provide Patrick and Angie with assistance throughout their investigation. Poole is believable as the good cop, and Harris is superb as the bad. They skillfully replicate the chemistry and rapport of a longtime duo.
This is a potentially career-altering effort from both Afflecks. Casey Affleck shows considerable range, and his brother Ben considerable skill behind the camera, even if he does heighten the tension with some absurdly loud gunshots at times. Ben co-wrote the screenplay with Aaron Stockard, which was based on a book of the same name, and which is apparently Affleck's favorite. His affection is noticeable; the elder Affleck paints in all the corners, and shows a refreshing dedication to fleshing out the supporting characters.
Well-acted and much smarter than your typical crime drama, Gone Baby Gone is a promising debut, full of well-drawn supporting characters and enough confidence to know which questions to answer, and which to let us ponder for ourselves.
Last edited by Yoda; 04-30-08 at 11:16 PM.
Reason: Fixed typo. Then later, added border to image.
