Movie Review: Gone Baby Gone
Back when I was in high school, my synagogue used to have B'nai Pizza, which was basically all the post-bar/bat mitzvah kids watching a movie, then eating pizza and discussing said movie. Sometimes it was something explicitly Jewish, like Europa Europa, and other times it was something that could start a conversation about ethics and behavior, for instance Crimes & Misdemeanors. I bring this up because last night xhollydayx and I caught Gone Baby Gone last night in Westlake, and it would have provided ample fodder for one of out ethics discussions.
This film is the directorial debut of Ben Affleck, and if we had chosen it based solely on that criteria you'd probably be right to question our sanity, especially because the lead actor is his brother Casey. As it happens, the film had some other things going for it. For starters, it was based on a novel by Dennis Lehane, who also wrote the novel that became the excellent Clint Eastwood film Mystic River. Secondly, the movie takes place in the same Boston neighborhoods that Affleck and Matt Damon brought us to in Good Will Hunting. Affleck takes a superior script and his familiarity with his home turf and delivers an above average psychological drama, with assistance from an excellent performance by Casey and a strong supporting ensemble cast led by Ed Harris.
A little girl disappears from her home. Angela's mother is a crackhead and all around loser who left her daughter at home for a few hours and returned to find her missing. Casey and Michelle Monaghan play private investigators who are hired by Angela's aunt to help find her. Ed Harris and John Ashton are the police detectives on the case, and together the four of them uncover a tangle of drugs, money and corruption and characters with dark motivations that twist the plot back and forth in all directions and ultimately leads to a series of ethical quandaries that make could provide an "Ethics 201" class material for several weeks. This film slots in nicely with Mystic River and The Departed as a rough trilogy of crime and despair in the Boston area.
Ben Affleck's directorial debut is almost as good as his writing debut was. I'd call it the best debut of the year if it weren't for Joey Lauren Adams stellar work with Come Early Morning.
EDIT: xhollydayx informs me that the name of the little girl was Amanda, not Angela. Oops.
This film is the directorial debut of Ben Affleck, and if we had chosen it based solely on that criteria you'd probably be right to question our sanity, especially because the lead actor is his brother Casey. As it happens, the film had some other things going for it. For starters, it was based on a novel by Dennis Lehane, who also wrote the novel that became the excellent Clint Eastwood film Mystic River. Secondly, the movie takes place in the same Boston neighborhoods that Affleck and Matt Damon brought us to in Good Will Hunting. Affleck takes a superior script and his familiarity with his home turf and delivers an above average psychological drama, with assistance from an excellent performance by Casey and a strong supporting ensemble cast led by Ed Harris.
A little girl disappears from her home. Angela's mother is a crackhead and all around loser who left her daughter at home for a few hours and returned to find her missing. Casey and Michelle Monaghan play private investigators who are hired by Angela's aunt to help find her. Ed Harris and John Ashton are the police detectives on the case, and together the four of them uncover a tangle of drugs, money and corruption and characters with dark motivations that twist the plot back and forth in all directions and ultimately leads to a series of ethical quandaries that make could provide an "Ethics 201" class material for several weeks. This film slots in nicely with Mystic River and The Departed as a rough trilogy of crime and despair in the Boston area.
Ben Affleck's directorial debut is almost as good as his writing debut was. I'd call it the best debut of the year if it weren't for Joey Lauren Adams stellar work with Come Early Morning.
EDIT: xhollydayx informs me that the name of the little girl was Amanda, not Angela. Oops.