TGWTG User Blogs

Many people have asked me since yesterday's review, "Mathew, if that was such a bad thriller, what exactly is a good one?" Actually, no one has asked me that because no one PMs me on these matters. Pity. But since I need some sort of intro, lets pretend some such anomaly happened, shall we? You know what, I'm going to tell you exactly what a good thriller is in three words: Gone Baby Gone.

If you haven't seen Gone Baby Gone, give yourself a good hard slap. Don't argue, just do it. Not a weak slap either, a full-blown one that will make your cheek look the same colour as a strawberry. That is fitting punishment for missing one of the best films of last year. (I say last year, the film only recently got a UK cinema release due to circumstances I won't mention - this is a comedy website, not a news one) It really is that damn good. If you're in America, where the film has been released on DVD, whilst you read this review, add it to your Netflix cue. I gurantee you won't regret it. Luckily for me, however, I saw it in the cinema, so brownie points for me.

The basic plot, based on a book by the writer of Mystic River, is disarmingly simple. Helen McCready's (Amy Ryan) daughter has gone missing. Helen's mother, who wants anything to get the girl back, unlike her uncaring user mother, hires private detective Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck) and his girlfriend Angie (Michelle Monaghan) to find her, in addition to the police on the case, led by Morgan Freeman. Ed Harris plays a cop who helps Patrick in his investigation, which soon takes more turns than a polygraph test. That's all you need to know going in.

Gone Baby Gone marks the debut of Ben Affleck as a director. Yes, that Ben Affleck, the one whose brother Casey is up there onscreen. This isn't an in-the-family casting choice for the sake of it, becuase anyone who saw the astonishing The Assassination of Jesse James knows Casey Affleck is the man. He's quickly moved from that "that guy who went on a hike with Matt Damon and then died in a Gus Van Sant film" (geek points to who gets that without an IMDb check) to one of my favourite actors. That isn't bad considering some of his early work, according to IMDb, reads like a car crash: Soul Survivors, American Pie 2... (He was also in the Ocean's movies - you learn something new every day) Here his babyface makes an interesting contrast to his moments of harsh brutality, seen early in one confrontation in a particularly seedy bar. This hints at a contrast between his morals and his actions, an issue which the film explores with gutso as it progresses.

Damn, I meant to talk about Ben in that paragraph, but Casey's amazing performance kind of ruined that. Ah, well, at least the genie's out of the bottle so I can get round to talking about Ben. Unlike some people, I don't hold a lot against Ben. I never saw Gigli or Surviving Christmas (I'm probably all the better for it) and to be honest, I couldn't care less about the Bennifer thing (gossip magazines are really for stalkers in denial). Really, the only major grudge against him is that he's Mr. Jennifer Garner. Lucky bastard. As a leading man, Ben's a little bit uncharismatic. That could just be that when he plays the hero, he's just a bit too much of a nice guy. See his bland performance in The Sum of All Fears. That said, Ben can be good when he wants to be: he was excellent in Hollywoodland doing a heartbreaking turn as George Reeves; if only there was more of him rather than Adrian Brody's so unneeded framing device. Here, he makes the leap to director excellently. There is an energy to the pacing and he never lets up the tension, even when it lurks quietly under the surface. He's probably the best director-turned-actor since Clint Eastwood.

Ben's eye extends to his actors, who are uniformly excellent. Morgan Freeman actually reminded me for the first time in a long time why I respect him so much. His role may be small, but it impressed me with how convincing it was. Ed Harris, with a large part, manages to wipe away my memories of him in National Treasure: Book of Secrets. His cop is believable and one of the most interesting characters in the movie, but since I try to keep spoilers to a minimum in my reviews, particularly for good films, I won't bother to elaborate and let you discover that for yourself. On the female front, Michelle Monaghan and Amy Ryan don't let the side down either, the latter earning a well-deserved Oscar nomination. Also, I spotted that Ed Harris' partner is Taggart out of Beverly Hills Cop. Good to see he's still around.

Part of the tension comes from the setting itself. The film sets itself in the grimiest areas of Boston, with the characters and the setting make the world they enhabit dangerous, volatile, unpredictable and even disgusting sometimes. This a world where you very much expect that worst and sometimes it happens, with both thrilling and horrific consequences. There were a number of scenes where my nails made intimate relations with my arm rest. This isn't an action movie where bullets fly but nothing happens; when a bullet is fired here, it has consequences.

The film is a morality play and this is one of the best things about the film, since you will likely spend days afterward considering the moral questions the film poses throughout its running time and maybe whether you would have done things differently. This is a film where there is no clean-cut answer and decisions can be right and wrong at the same time. Midway through the film, Patrick makes a judgment call - he is applauded for it, but his conscience isn't clean. The film closes on probably the biggest question, after Patrick's moral compass is tested to its absolute limit. This revelation may seem far-fetched, but the character was given good motivation to do what he did and thus I believed it. Your opinion might vary, but for me, it worked. (Damn, I want to talk about this so much, but I know I really can't)

What's annoying about Gone Baby Gone is that it is being forgotten. For the love of God, don't let it. The Academy might have made a right royal balls-up bytrying to make a claim that fake and overhyped indie flick Juno was the best film of last year, but that doesn't mean you have to. Rent or buy this and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and have yourself a double feature. I gurantee it will restore your faith in good cinema. Its still around - it's just being ignored.

5/5