Great novel, horrible adaption for the screen.

Rating: 1/10 (22 October 2008)

Gone baby gone was probably one of the greatest novels I've ever read and Im a big fan of Dennis Lehane. This however didn't help the movie at all. And it doesn't feel like Dennis has had any say in how the 'feel' of the movie should be.
First of all, the cast: Patrick Kenzie was played by Casey Affleck. A rather young looking mediocre actor. I can imagine him playing in a teen-flick as some pretty boy but a roughneck private detective just doesn't fit. He murmurs when he talks and I had trouble finding his acting/emotions trustworthy. He is also dressed in ridiculously childish clothes throughout the movie. (in the novel he's pretty rough, dressed in shirts/jackets and he also has a beard). I mean seriously, is that too much to ask? Angie Gennaro, played by Michelle Monaghan, was just horrible throughout the whole movie. Although she looks pretty much like Dennis portraits her in the novel, they had stripped her of her cocky attitude and made her seem more like a boring housewife. (The novel displays her as tougher and more aggressive than Kenzie). Michelle's acting was OK I guess, but way too 'weak'.
Cheese 'jean Baptiste' in the book was a huge, fat, redheaded, pale Caucasian who thought and acted as if he was black. In the movie he was replaced by a African-American and to my surprise he acted even worse than Casey. They had also scrambled his role in the novel and it got very confusing.
As for the rest of the cast they played their roles really nice. Remy Bressant, played by Ed Harris, did a wonderful job and Ed was a good choice for the role.
Second, the script & movie.
While Ben Affleck tried his best to convert a genius novel of roughly 500 pages into a two hour movie he missed a lot of scenes which in the novel are critical. These scenes were also incredibly badly portrayed. The book is scary and very dark most of the time. The movie however, was a complete joke in that aspect. Almost all the scenes were shot in daylight and gave very little to the spooky theme that the novel had.
All in all the movie got confusing and a very emotion novel was turned into a flat emotionless and mediocre drama.
Im writing this since I feel that this was not a fair conversion from novel to movie. so basically: Great novel, horrible movie.