Reel Politique: Movie Review, Gone Baby Gone
Do yourself a favor and catch Gone Baby Gone.
It has a lot not to recommend it. The film is the directorial debut of Ben Affleck, and first time helming by actors can be dire. Worse, the film stars his younger, shorter brother Casey, he of the many strange actorial ticks and vocal mannerisms as seen in Committed and Gerry. And it is yet another story set in the hysterical world of child abduction and pedophilia.
However, Gone Baby Gone also has a pedigree. It’s based on a novel by Dennis Lehane in his Kenzie-Gennaro series (the fourth of the five so far). Like the award winning Mystic River, it is set in the most rundown part of Boston. But Boston is a world that director Affleck seems to know well, and the adaptation, credited to Affleck and Aaron Stockard, a crony of Affleck’s who has worked with him as far back as Good Will Hunting, appears to be an accurate account of the book. The film has a terrific cast, from Morgan Freeman to Ed Harris, from The Wire grads Amy Ryan and Michael K. Williams (Omar), along with several new and invigorating faces, and one of my favorite character actors, Titus Welliver, here sporting handlebar mustaches out of a gay version of Deadwood.
Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck) and Angie Gennaro (Michelle Monaghan) are a young couple that also works as private eyes, generally running skip traces and alimony payments. When a four-year-old girl is abducted, they are called in by the girl’s aunt (Amy Madigan) because their street cred might give them access to witnesses who otherwise won’t talk to the cops. They soon learn that the case is much more complicated than they expected. The vileness of the girl’s biological mom (Amy Ryan), a foul-mouthed shrew who lets the media attention go to her head, will evoke memories in local viewers of the 2002 case of the Oregon City girls Miranda Gaddis and Ashley Pond.
Gone Baby Gone proves to be an intense, gritty little thriller that would have made a great discovery if it had played on a double bill with a similar crime film back in the 1970s. It’s cousin, Mystic River, was a dull, slow, plodding, Oscar whoring enterprise with a big cinematic ego. This film is tight, efficient, with an ingenious plot, a good action scene or two, and several great acting turns. There is also a subtly funny parody of media intrusiveness in the last four minutes.
Flaws: Monaghan as the partner is mostly just a passenger on this ride. Occasionally the camera will start on Casey Affleck, say, driving a car, and then after wallowing in his looks and his sounds (which bring to mind a Joe Pantoliano with ostensible hair), the camera will pan to the right and you’ll be started to see that Monaghan is with him. She seems extraneous to much of the action. Once in a while the screenwriters will remember to give her a line to justify her presence in a scene, but otherwise, her character only seems to serve a function at the very end.
A larger flaw is also one that takes the viewer to the heart of what makes the film interesting. Basically, the movie flips conventional cop morality. Here it is the police who plant evidence and run the world their way, and lone public citizens who adhere to a moral compass. At the end, Kenzie lives up to a vow he has made, but every other character in the scene with him says that he is wrong, that the person he is trying to rescue is better off where she is. He does it anyway, and puts people in jail and loses his girlfriend. But later you wonder, why was he so adamant about his moral code here? Didn’t he, just 30 minutes ago in the movie blow away a pedophile as judge, jury, and execution, in a scene right out of Mickey Spillane? Where was his code then? Why is it so inconsistent? What are we suppose to take away from this film’s ending? Maybe the book makes it clearer, but despite these qualifications, Gone Baby Gone remains one of the most unusual and interesting crime films to come along in a while.
February 13th, 2008 at 10:17 am
Probably the review that best reflects my opinions about this excellent film - with one exception. When you ask, “But later you wonder, why was he so adamant about his moral code here? Didn’t he, just 30 minutes ago in the movie blow away a pedophile as judge, jury, and execution, in a scene right out of Mickey Spillane? Where was his code then? Why is it so inconsistent? ”
I would think his actions at the end of the film were in reaction to his moral code 30 minutes prior - and that they were motivated out of an attempt to try and right what he perceived to be his previous “wrong”, with a damn the consequences, stubborn determination.
As for, “What are we supposed to take away from this film’s ending?”, perhaps nothing more than a shot of reality - and a reminder that in life, sometimes there truly are no happy endings all tied up with a bow, regrets haunt us all, no matter how noble our intentions, and moral dilemmas, by definition, don’t have a “correct” answer.