Gone Baby Gone (**½)
Director: Ben Affleck
Starring: Casey Affleck, Michele Monaghan, Amy Ryan, Morgan Freeman
Seen: February 7th 2008
**½ Out of ****
Dennis Lehane certainly writes some serious novels. The previous film made from one of his novels was the bleak but brilliant Mystic River, starring Sean Penn, Tim Robbins and Kevin Bacon, one of my favourite films.
Amy Ryan plays an irresponsible mother whose daughter is kidnapped in a rough Boston neighbourhood. P.I.’s Casey Affleck and Michele Monaghan decide to help her get her daughter back, and trying to keep the police out of it, this becomes an eventual anything goes battle that might not be enough to save the child. It is a hard film to watch, but it does honestly show us what humans are capable of, as a first line, and as retribution.
Gone Baby Gone is a very good film, I just didn’t enjoy it as much as I wanted to, thinking back of how intensely gripping I found Mystic River. Ben Affleck does a great job directing, and the actors all deliver outstanding performances, especially Casey Affleck and Amy Ryan. It just wasn’t my kind of film, and I simply can’t explain why. It just felt… unexplained, or unfinished.
And yes, that’s exactly what the story aims for, the viewer needs to make that moral decision that the movie does not, but I required something else, what that is I can’t quite figure out. Maybe this makes the film even better for leaving the final decision with the viewer, but I felt slightly more confused than actually relieved. Mystic River leaves you with a similar feeling, but even though the conclusion to that film is a tragic one, you still have more clarity surrounding the whole plot.
Gone Baby Gone lost me somewhere during its 2 hour run-time, and even though I kept on enjoying the way in which the story was presented, I felt alienated from it for some reason, as if I missed an integral story element, which I didn’t.
I have not yet read the novel, but would like to one day, and maybe then I’ll adapt my rating of this film, but for now I’ll stick with the 2.5 stars.
Starring: Casey Affleck, Michele Monaghan, Amy Ryan, Morgan Freeman
Seen: February 7th 2008
**½ Out of ****
Dennis Lehane certainly writes some serious novels. The previous film made from one of his novels was the bleak but brilliant Mystic River, starring Sean Penn, Tim Robbins and Kevin Bacon, one of my favourite films.
Amy Ryan plays an irresponsible mother whose daughter is kidnapped in a rough Boston neighbourhood. P.I.’s Casey Affleck and Michele Monaghan decide to help her get her daughter back, and trying to keep the police out of it, this becomes an eventual anything goes battle that might not be enough to save the child. It is a hard film to watch, but it does honestly show us what humans are capable of, as a first line, and as retribution.
Gone Baby Gone is a very good film, I just didn’t enjoy it as much as I wanted to, thinking back of how intensely gripping I found Mystic River. Ben Affleck does a great job directing, and the actors all deliver outstanding performances, especially Casey Affleck and Amy Ryan. It just wasn’t my kind of film, and I simply can’t explain why. It just felt… unexplained, or unfinished.
And yes, that’s exactly what the story aims for, the viewer needs to make that moral decision that the movie does not, but I required something else, what that is I can’t quite figure out. Maybe this makes the film even better for leaving the final decision with the viewer, but I felt slightly more confused than actually relieved. Mystic River leaves you with a similar feeling, but even though the conclusion to that film is a tragic one, you still have more clarity surrounding the whole plot.
Gone Baby Gone lost me somewhere during its 2 hour run-time, and even though I kept on enjoying the way in which the story was presented, I felt alienated from it for some reason, as if I missed an integral story element, which I didn’t.
I have not yet read the novel, but would like to one day, and maybe then I’ll adapt my rating of this film, but for now I’ll stick with the 2.5 stars.
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