Amazing local characters, some miscasting, a decent job of capturing Lehane

Rating: 6/10 (10 July 2009)

As a fan of these Dennis Lehane novels, I was intrigued to see this film. As the Afflecks are actual Bostonians, it looked like the basic needs of the deep local Boston culture could be captured by these brothers who know the town and its nuances.
Unfortunately, Michelle Monaghan as Gennaro was simply awful casting. The character in the books is very Italian sexy through Patrick's eyes, which is a wonderful part of the Boston ethnicity of the whole book series. Nothing against Michelle Monaghan, but she was just wrong for the role. Casey Affleck on the other hand, wasn't bad, as he clearly understands the local flavor. Ed Harris was simply amazing too.
The folks who made this film though, did some amazing casting of local Boston actors to really capture the poor underclass of what the neighborhoods are like.
Lehanes books are sometimes frenetic, and the filmmakers tried to capture that here, but all in all, it was so so. Its hard to capture the richness of the characters developed in a book within the limited time given to a feature film, as we have seen zillions of times over.
There are so many cartoonish characters in the Lehane books, and there could have been a tad more done to introduce some of the bizarre characters that inhabit the books (Bubba for one).
All in all, a fair first shot at a complex book. Not the best, but not the worst.