Gone Baby Gone (2007)

Directed by: Ben Affleck
Written by: Ben Affleck/Aaron Stockard
Based on book by: Dennis Lehane

And the depressing movies just keep on comin’.

But here are a few previews to make you happy first.

THE BUCKET LIST–You know, I’m totally ready for Rob Reiner to make another good movie. It’s been since 1995 or 6 that he’s done good (American President or Ghosts Of Mississippi depending on your tastes) and he’s due now. This one is about Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson getting old together and doing everything they wanted to do before they died. And, of course, they’re (I think) terminally ill. I can’t wait to see these guys together. It’s gotta be pure cool…with a tear shed here and there.

LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA–Apparently, this isn’t nearly as depressing as it sounds. Two people (Javier Bardem and Giovanna Mezzogiorno) fall in love and then spend the next 54 years trying to find each other and be able to actually BE in love. Kind of a Serendipity for the art house set. Looks like it could be good. And with Mike Newell at the helm…well, it could go either way. Anybody see Mona Lisa Smile?

MARGOT AT THE WEDDING–Another movie I missed at Telluride, but I heard it was pretty good. Nicole Kidman, Jack Black and Jennifer Jason Leigh star in a family comedy/drama from Noah Baumbach, the newly crowned king of the genre. (After The Squid And The Whale, who could refute that?) I’m all for it. Apparently, the movie was originally titled Nicole In The Country. They changed it so people didn’t think it was a documentary…or something.

VANTAGE POINT–Every preview I see for this actually makes me want to see it more, as a good preview should do. There are more details in this one and it actually makes the president (William Hurt) look less like a bad guy and more like a guy who is caught up in more than he bargained for. I’m there.

Now, how ’bout helpin’ some kidnapped fuckin’ kids?

You see, Bahstin is a tough fuckin’ place. You don’t grow up there, you survive. Yeah, it’s gotten a lot better, but it’s still rough around the edges. Especially in the South. If you’re a Southie, you got a hard row to fuckin’ hoe.

And that’s where this movie takes place. Helene McCready (Amy Ryan) is a shitty mom. A guy in town calls her a coke-ho. Her sister-in-law, Bea (Amy Madigan), calls her a cunt. It doesn’t get much worse than that. When her little girl is kidnapped she almost doesn’t even notice.

But Bea does and she calls on private investigators Patrick and Angie (Casey Affleck and Michelle Monaghan) to “help” the police. Of course, the cops aren’t too pleased with that. Jack Doyle (Morgan Freeman), who heads up the missing children department, lost a child himself and takes it personally when one goes missing. He has no intentions of letting these two “kids” take over his investigation.

Things change a little when Patrick and Angie start to get some leads that the cops never would have gotten. That’s when Detective Remy Bressant (Ed Harris) takes notice and starts to take them seriously.

Things heat up. Things get personal for Patrick and Angie. And things don’t go as planned. But at least Helene is starting to notice that her daughter is gone…and she starts to care.

It’s pretty amazing when a movie like this comes together. Everything is kind of working against it. You have an actor that no one really likes anymore taking the screenwriting and directing role (Ben Affleck) and hands over the acting job to his little brother, who people are kind of indifferent to.

Not after this. I think that if people see this movie (which it seems that some people are seeing it…it’s No. 6 at the box office) they will start to realize that Casey is a really good actor and Ben is actually a much better writer/director than he is an actor. (And let’s not call him a first-time director. He has apparently directed two other movies that have just never been released. Maybe this movie will change that, too.)

I can’t tell you how great this movie is. Casey is such a bad-ass in it. Not like a “beat people up” type of bad-ass, but a “stand up for his girl and stare dangerous people down” bad-ass. (I especially love the scene with him and Cheese (Edi Gathegi). Fucking amazing.) And he pulls it off beautifully. There’s no way you would look at this guy and think that he could stare a drug-dealer down. In fact, he and Angie get some shit for being “high and mighty” around the other people around their neighborhood. They all grew up together, but the two of them got out and made something of themselves. So they must be assholes.

Amy Ryan is also very good. She’s such a terrible person, but there’s a lot of humanity in there, too.

And she’s the character that brings up the main issue of this movie: Who is to decide what is right? Is planting evidence ok if it’s to get a child out of a bad home? Whose choice is it to take these kids out of homes like this? And how far is too far?

This one is up there with Reservation Road for “kids’ issues” movies this year. Watching both of them as a double feature would probably be too much to take.

And I see awards being thrown around for both of them. Good job, Ben. I hope this does something for you.