| GONE BABY GONE (2007) : B.Affleck : 7/10 |
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 How ironic that a film which culminates with a particularly thorny moral dilemma should have caused rather similar problems for its UK distributor. Gone Baby Gone was slated for release last Christmas, but was "indefinitely" postponed over concerns that the subject-matter - the abduction of a briefly-unsupervised little blonde girl - bore unfortunate similarities to the Madeleine McCann case. At one stage it appeared that the picture might even go straight to DVD: a harsh fate indeed for what is, flaws notwithstanding, one of the year's more satisfying mainstream thrillers. It's a notably promising directorial debut from Ben Affleck - who's also made a decent job (with Aaron Stockard) of adapting Denis Lehane's hardboiled 1998 novel for the screen: the results are ultimately more satisfying, indeed, than the last Hollywood Lehane adaptation, Clint Eastwood's intense but portentous and overpraised Mystic River (2003). In both movies the story unfolds in some of the scruffier, seamier corners of Boston (with which local-lad Affleck evidently has greater natural affinity than Californian Eastwood), using crime-genre tropes to explore issues of morality, community and justice. Risking nepotism charges, Affleck casts kid-brother Casey as private-eye protagonist Kenzie - but, fortunately for all, the actor (consolidating his recent breakthrough in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford) proves ideal as a man who's much tougher than his slight frame, youthful face and whiny voice suggest. Kenzie is an east-coast cousin of Elliott Gould's Philip Marlowe in Robert Altman's classic The Long Goodbye (1973): an easy-going, laid-back sort whose rock-solid moral sense is made to seem freakishly anachronistic and incongruous in the context of his decadent times and seedy milieu. This resilient core gradually emerges after Kenzie and his professional/romantic partner Gennaro (Monaghan) are hired to investigate the disappearance of moppet Amanda (Madeline O'Brien) - and discover that her loudmouth, hard-drinking mother Helene (vivid work from Oscar-nominated Amy Ryan) has numerous messy connections to Boston's underworld. The resultant convolutions may strain plausibility as twists, flashbacks and revelations pile up - but audiences willing to go along with the journey will be rewarded arriving at a final-act destination that's genuinely thought-provoking and unexpectedly poignant. Go, Affleck(s), go! Neil Young 6.Feb.08 -------------------------------------------------------------------- USA 114m (BBFC timing) director : Ben Affleck (debut) editor : William Goldenberg (Miami Vice, Domino, National Treasure, etc) seen 26.Jan.08 Gothenburg (Biopalatset cinema : SEK 85) |
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