Gone Baby Gone

Gone Baby Gone (2007) 73 (Metacritic: 72)

Editor's note: Well, I waited a long time to begin this site, but it's finally happened due to A) moving B) having some time to watch the Netflix again. Ironically, this first film is way down on the Queue, but I just hooked up the Xbox360, and wanted to try Netflix streaming. It was excellent picture and sound for the most part, but there was some jerky motion in a lot of panning shots that looked like dropped frames. I'm definitely curious to see how it performs on the incoming HDTV.

I don't know how closely Dennis Lehane's words hew to Ben Affleck and Aaron Stockard's script, but it's easy to see how Lehane could write for The Wire after hearing the dialogue between Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck), Angie Gennaro (Michelle Monaghan) and the denizens of Dorchester in South Boston. As they investigate the disappearance of Helene McReady's (Amy Ryan) daughter, Amanda, the film also jogged my memory of Michael Patrick McDonald's All Souls, which I finished reading a few months ago. (Soon to be a major motion picture as well.) Street toughs, drug dealers, police. There is some hilariously profane and scary stuff being said during this film. I recommend having your in-laws walk in during the near bar fight if you want to get a blush out of them.

I would guess that many people were surprised by Ben's skilled direction in the same way that others were similarly impressed by George Clooney's debut in Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (myself included). Assembling a good cast with a good script certainly helps. His tabloid past aside, the guy's clearly got some talent. Loved you in Phantoms, dude.

Ben does receive tremendous benefit from frequent Michael Mann editor William Goldenberg. The montage and cuts throughout the early narration reminded me of Soderbergh's Out of Sight, like I'm removed from the environment as a viewer precisely at the time when I'm supposed to connect with these characters. I suppose one could see some symbolism in that Casey and Monaghan are "the inside view" to a neighborhood that traditionally avoids contact with the police (aka outsiders), but that may just be good fortune.

Ben directs his brother into a really enjoyable performance that is both subtle and sledgehammer. You can see him twitching with fear in the early bar scene when he and Monaghan are threatened. And his skull pop to the criminal on the way out reminds me of the Adam Goldberg fight from Dazed and Confused, something he would have done if he had won. Patrick is a scared guy who looks young and is in way over his head, but you can see the confidence building in him to the point where he shoots the pedophile during the raid on the parolees' house. Of course, his moral absoluteness is damned near agonizingly painful. Returning Helene's daughter is clearly the stupidest thing anyone could do, and he's willing to throw away a hot Michelle Monaghan to do it? That's a little much. It does give us the great ending, though, where he's 99% sure that he's made a huge, life-altering mistake. But his gaze also shows the 1% of him that sees her turning out like him and escaping the many traps contained in both the neighborhood and within her family. Of course, the irony is will she hate her uncle later for trying to free her from her mother, or for not succeeding?

There's no denying the tremendously despicable Amy Ryan here. (My friend MD'A rated it his second favorite performance of the past decade.) But she disappears for so much of the film that I was expecting a bit more, considering all the hype about it and the Oscar nod. I would have liked to see her reaction (or obliviousness or jealousy of the media attention) to the news of the other missing child. She couldn't be further from Beadie Russell in The Wire, but it is another fantastic performance that hits you in the gut. And speaking of The Wire, poor Michael K. Williams (bit part as a detective) has it worse than Mark Hamill ever did. He is never going to live down being Omar Little.

There is a serious breakdown that happens just before the final act that really disappointed me, though. I was fairly convinced that Amanda had been placed in a secret home for her betterment, but I didn't expect the first flashback re-enactment of the botched ransom drop to be a lie. And having the ultimate truth revealed in a second flashback later upset me as a viewer. It seemed fishy that Ed Harris (the prototypical morally righteous, but legally flexible police) would be so reckless with the girl's safety over a bag of drug money, especially after he makes the drunken reveal on the steps to reinforce that he would do anything to protect a child. I also have no idea why chief Morgan Freeman would go along with this plan. The voiceover makes a point of informing us that he resigns at half retirement pay because of the scandal. Was he in for a cut of the money? Why not just retire and take the kid without all the hullabaloo? Or at least find a better way for her to "die" publicly. And why this girl in particular? Perhaps there's more to the Morgan Freeman character in the book, but there is really no explanation or motivation for why this particular plot was hatched in the first place. It's a great yarn on the surface, but glossing over these characters' motivations hurts the effect of the film. But that probably would have added another 20 minutes to the movie, so...authors just need to write shorter novels, I guess.

I really enjoyed Mystic River, and I liked Gone Baby Gone quite a bit, so I guess I should read some Lehane. At least the book Queue isn't quite as long as the Netflix one. Ben has done admirably with his first two films so far. Perhaps he's aiming to be the Barry Levinson of Boston. How about trying a comedy next?

Since I'm new to the 100 point scale, I was pretty shocked to see that my score was one off of the Metacritic average. I'm curious to if that will continue.