I was trepidatious when I heard Ben Affleck had been tapped to adapt and direct Dennis Lehane’s Gone Baby Gone. His debut directing gig, Affleck isn’t exactly known for his acting talent, and I was concerned that he wouldn’t be up to the challenge of bringing Lehane’s dark but sympathetic vision of a Boston kidnapping to its most perfect light.
My concerns were apparently ill-placed. Gone Baby Gone is a centered, responsible film without any headstrong tendencies or overwrought sentimentality. It is measured and paced to perfection, with just the right blend of cynical observation and hopeful optimism. I am a fan.
The story begins and ends on the streets of Boston, a working class city worn by poor economy and whose citizens are white trash drudge workers, people without glamor or affectation. They are, as young Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck) says, his people. Kenzie is a detective, lover and business partner with Angie Gennaro (Michelle Monaghan). In the wake of 4-year old Amanda Macready’s disappearance from her squalid South Boston neighborhood, Amanda’s aunt Bea (Amy Madigan) and her husband Lionel (Titus Welliver) hire Kenzie and Gennaro to help find Amanda, whose mother Helene (Amy Ryan) is as irresponsible as she is sympathetic. Helene’s a poor parent, drugged and laced in alcoholic haze, barely capable of understanding what’s happening, but she still desperately wants Amanda back. Bea is convinced Kenzie and Gennaro know the neighborhood well enough to get answers to questions the cops won’t or can’t get.
Kenzie handles the local elements, asking around local dives questions that bring inconsistencies in Helene’s story concerning the night Amanda disappeared. Detective Remy Bressant (Ed Harris) doesn’t like Kenzie and Gennaro horning in on the case. Neither does Jack Doyle (Morgan Freeman), chief of police whose daughter was also kidnapped and killed years ago, though he understands the grief a family encounters in such situations.
What ensues during Kenzie’s investigation is the revealing of secrets and devious plans that underlie the basic premise of Ben Affleck’s local scene. Affleck understands Boston, understands the rhythms and motives of its people who simply want to slash their way free from poverty and apathy, but who lack understanding or means to do so. Likewise, Affleck understands corruption, in all forms, and explores what happens when good men do bad things, even when they believe they’re doing the right thing. And Affleck doesn’t shy away from opening up the vulnerabilities of his heroes, putting them in untenable situations that damn them no matter which road they choose to traverse.
Casey Affleck and Monaghan look a little young and misplaced in the dingy recesses of Boston, but despite the quirky way that Casey Affleck seems to move through his encounters with police and scumbags, his role, seemingly miscast, slowly comes to maturity and intensity that belies his youthful looks, while Monaghan as Gennaro is refreshingly understated, with her own realities to face and choices to make that directly affect her future with Kenzie. Freeman is reliable as Doyle, a wounded, compassionate man with the best intentions. Harris as Bressant is explosive, intensely motivated by both violence and disgust for the dirt that lines his city. But the beauty of the film, and a testament to Affleck’s direction, is that when the main characters have left the screen, the side characters have just as much depth and impact. The film never slows, never meanders, never loses focus or sight of its pure objective.
By exploring with elegant simplicity the police procedural of a kidnapping investigation and the lives of the people it touches, Ben Affleck makes it clear he understands the human element and how devastating actions of the heart can be.
Fringe Rating: out of 5