(Long Island, N.Y.) At last- a nice, crappy movie for me to review.Okay, I just had to get that out. My fingers were twitching upon leaving the movie theater last night and it was only after typing that lone sentence out that I was able to finally get some sleep. You see, this Gone Baby Gone movie was indeed horrible, but at the same time it lit a fire of excitement in my soul at the prospect of reviewing it. You see, when walking out of the theater, I knew I had a gold mine on my hands. I’m sure my excitement at having witnessed a BAD movie may be lost on you, my dear readers, but if you’ll give me just a moment, I’ll be more than happy to explain my elation.
Go look at my recent review archive. If you do that, you’ll notice that the vast majority of the movies I’ve covered lately have tended to score around the 2 or 2 ½ star mark. Basically, all average, middle of the road stuff. Sure, last week I gave We Own The Night a full 3 stars, but that was more due to the fact that it had managed to rise to a level just slightly above the base cinematic mediocrity that I’ve been forced to swallow over the course of the last few months than it’s overall
quality when taken on its own merits. And going by those standards, I probably should have given Rob Zombie’s Halloween 3 ½ stars instead of 3, being that it’s been the most enjoyable flick I’ve seen in quite some time. But I’m now running the risk of delving into a babbling rant, so I’ll put on the brakes and get back to business. Suffice it to say,
writing these reviews has been tough lately, as Hollywood has been releasing an endless stream of bland, formulaic crud and I’m just feeling
less than inspired. I want some emotion awakened in me, good or bad- either take a risk
and make something unique and great, or make something so bad that I get angry. Happily, Gone Baby Gone achieves the latter.
Gone Baby Gone is horrific actor Ben Affleck’s directorial debut. And, to my surprise, it started out very solidly, with an especially excellent bit of character acting by star Casey Affleck (yes, he’s Ben’s brother. Some might cry biased casting, but he really is good) as Boston-based private investigator Patrick Kenzie. Along with his girlfriend Angela Gennaro (Michelle Monaghan), the two are hired to assist in the hunt for a 4 year old girl abducted from a (very) white trash mother living in the run-down neighborhood of Dorchester. The whole event has become a media frenzy and main focus of Jack Doyle (Morgan Freeman), a police Chief heading up a division dedicated to solving missing child cases. However, the locals are reluctant to talk to the authorities, and only the street-smart Kenzie seems to be able to get any real dirt on the case. During the course of the investigation, Kenzie is partnered up with police detective Remy Bressant (Ed Harris, who seems to be really taking to tough-guy roles late in his career, with great success), and at this point the film really starts casting doubts on everything and everyone. Like I said, it’s very, very solid so far.
What really impressed me the most about Gone Baby Gone was very gritty, very real atmosphere the film projected. One major issue I have with most Hollywood movies of late is that everyone looks so…perfect. No matter if they’re homeless bums or people living a Road Warrior lifestyle while fighting zombies in an apocalyptic wasteland, they’ll always have expertly applied make-up, flawless skin, and blazingly white, straight teeth. Heck, even the zombies look pretty damn good these days. What was so refreshing about Gone Baby Gone was that it contained none of this blatant, movie star vanity. Instead, we are presented with characters that actually look like REAL PEOPLE (even the stars). And not just real people, but real ugly people. They look unclean. They’re fat. They wear tacky, ill-fitting clothes. They have crummy teeth and bad tattoos. I know people like to use movies as a form of escape from the doldrums of everyday life, but a dose of reality in this case helped establish mood and atmosphere more than any movie I’ve seen in ages. To me, it was a breath of fresh air.
But then, about 2/3rds of the way through, a plot twist happens that basically ruins the entire movie. Plot twists in film can be real tricky- when done well, they can be mind-blowing (see M. Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense), and when done poorly, they can make you want to
dive head-first into a mountain of thumbtacks (see Alexandre Aja’s High Tension). Sadly, Gone Baby Gone’s twist is so awful, so badly conceived, that it undoes everything good that the movie had achieved up until that point, and it never recovers. I was pretty angry about it, frankly.
I’ll do my best to avoid spoiling anything for those of you who plan on ignoring my advice and subjecting themselves to this stupidity, but it’s hard to convey my disgust with this particular plot twist without delving into specifics. But here goes- any normal person would look at the situation the movie presented, see a simple, obvious solution, go for it, and the film would be over. It’s not a matter of suspending disbelief, it’s just common sense. But certain characters in Gone Baby Gone look at the same situation, and instead take a completely different route that involves a huge cloak-and-dagger conspiracy which results in the deaths of several people (among other infractions of the law as well).
What makes it especially retarded is that everything could have been done in a completely legal way, with far, far less effort, danger, and harm, and with much greater expediency to the solution. I know this sounds confusing, but you can liken the twist to a guy wanting cup of coffee on the way to work and instead of just driving to 7-11, decides to fly down to Columbia, pick his own beans, grind them, brew them, and ride Juan Valdez’s donkey back to America while gunning down innocent border patrol guards. Same overall result, sure, but it makes no sense to anyone that is in possession of even the smallest fraction of their mental faculties. It’s just a basic flaw with the script itself- I honestly can’t understand how anyone involved didn’t look at it and say, “What the hell IS this?”
The evil Ben Affleck is more to blame for this than anyone else, as he’s not only the director of this mess, but one of the writers as well (the script was adapted from the novel of the same name by Dennis Lehane). Not content with merely torturing audiences with his acting “talents,” he now seems bent on ruining the entire cinematic experience for movie goers. It’s a shame, as his direction was very adept, but no amount of skill behind the camera or in the editing room can overcome a script with a plot twist this bad. Gone Baby Gone plods ahead, however, and goes on to a rather downbeat ending that unsuccessfully attempts to present the film as a tale of morality and choice. But given the circumstances its main character is thrust into, the choice he’s forced to make is the only sensible one available, and yet he is ridiculously ostracized by those closest to him for it. Again, this is a major flaw at the scriptwriting level. It’s a director’s job to deliver his vision to the screen, but he should have caught these problems during the writing stage and put a stop to them before filming even began. Still, I should thank the guy, as he finally gave me a movie that was fun to review, if not to watch.
Anyway, that’s why the movie is so bad. Don’t see it. Please. Some crazy person might give Ben Affleck more money to make another film. Only you have the power to stop this-use it wisely.
