Team Affleck

Rating: 9/10 (20 February 2008)

I think it's safe to say that Ben Affleck may belong behind the camera rather than in front of it. With such disasters as SURVIVING Christmas, JERSEY GIRL, and the shockingly bad GIGLI {shiver!}, he's not the best leading guy. His only saving graces as an actor have been GOOD WILL HUNTING, DOGMA (saved by the dialogue), and HOLLYWOODLAND (his best performance to date).
Directed and co-written by Ben, GONE BABY GONE shows a talent previously unknown to him (or us!) But another Affleck has appeared on the screen and his supplanting of Ben was cemented this year with his rock solid performances here and in THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD. I'm speaking, of course, about Ben's younger brother Casey. Young, hip, handsome, and with a broad range of abilities, Casey has proved himself to be a stellar young actor. His portrayal here in Gone Baby Gone as private detective Patrick Kenzie was superb, showing us a delicate looking guy with a tough interior.
The story, too, is fascinating in that it makes the audience think about life's choices. When a child is kidnapped from her home, everyone is a suspect. Two police detectives named Remy Bressant (Ed Harris, A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE) and Nick Poole (John Ashton) are suspiciously too close to the case, and even Patrick is eventually shown how upstanding yet corrupt they can be. The abducted child's mother, Helene McCready (Amy Ryan, LOOKING FOR COMEDY IN THE Muslim WORLD) is seen as a drugged out slut who seems to care little for her missing child. Did she have anything to do with the disappearance? Time and again the audience is shown multiple possibilities and sometimes it's easy to figure out that someone was involved in dubious activities. But if they were involved in the child's abduction remains foggy up until the very end.
Morgan Freeman (10 ITEMS OR LESS) plays Captain Jack Doyle, the person responsible for the local missing children's investigations. Always a strong presence, Mr. Freeman is seen as the uptight yet extremely respectable lawman who finds himself in the wrong place at the right time. His "involvement" may come as a complete surprise to many.
This is a great drama with many tense moments that'll have you squirming in your seat, wondering if the poor little girl is dead, or perhaps wishing that she were so that this torture would end (after seeing what a pedophile is capable of later in the film, one begins to get this sickly feeling).
Ben Affleck is to be commended for directing such a taught series of events that lead and mislead with just enough finesse to keep audiences guessing. It's also a great take on morality and what that entails. Sometimes doing the right thing is the wrong thing ...as weird as that sounds. It is our decisions that make us who we are and bind us to futures we may not feel comfortable with. This is something that is brought out to impeccable perfection at the end of the film as we watch Parick (Casey Affleck) sit on a couch and stare blankly at a television set. The pain and satisfaction of it all is who's sitting next to him.