View to a Hammock

Rating: 6/10 (7 October 2008)

Casey Affleck (Ben's bro) stars in this controlled, sober, Ben-directed thriller. From a novel by Dennis Lehane, Ben Affleck makes gravy in his directorial debut, about a redneck daughter's kidnapping on the mean streets of Boston. And how his sleepwalking brother saves the day.
Surrounded by intrigue and Ed Harris as a detective and Morgan Freeman as the head cop (all doing that ker-ray-zee Boston accent), Casey slouches his way through the role of Patrick Kenzie, a small-time private dick, called in by the aunt of the kidnapped girl, who believes that neophytes Patrick, and his private dick-lover, Angie (Michelle Monaghan) would bring a more personalized approach to the investigation than the callous police.
They do - and get in way over their heads, their own personal life impacted by the moral decisions they must make.
Genetics is amazing: we can really see Ben in Casey; his career was kickstarted by the OCEAN'S ELEVEN franchise, where we were introduced to his Hammock-on-a-Sunday-afternoon style. As soon as he shouts, we're listening to Ben... He is his own man when in that hammock. Not to say he can't pull out a deft Action passage, as when he is surrounded by rednecks in a bar and mans up in front of his woman to get them out of there with all limbs intact.
After a gruesome scene involving another kidnapped child, the discovery of the redneck daughter is anti-climactic, for the kidnappers were not placing her in danger, but rather trying to save her from a life of trailer-trashiness, as exhibited by her mother (played with lowlife brio by Amy Madigan), her every move screaming Easy-After-Two-Vodkas.
When moral ambiguity comes, pray it doesn't come as Morgan Freeman. When Morgan Freeman tells you to do the wrong thing - and he tells you it's the right thing - you believe him. It's Morgan Freeman.
It took someone as half-asleep as Casey Affleck to resist the pull...