Morgan Freeman, Ed Harris and Casey Affleck in the Ben Affleck movie ‘Gone Baby Gone’

There’s a decent chance that a book written by Dennis Lehane might be set in and around working class Boston, Massachusetts. Translate the book into a movie with a screenplay written by Aaron Stockard and director Ben Affleck, then an even better chance can be made. The 1998 book Gone, Baby, Gone by Dennis Lehane became the movie about a kidnapping and private investigation called Gone Baby Gone (2007).

(From left, Morgan Freeman as Captain Jack Doyle, Casey Affleck as Private Investigator Patrick Kenzie and Michelle Monaghan as Angie Gennaro in the Ben Affleck movie Gone Baby Gone).

With Ben Affleck making his directorial debut with the movie, the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston centers as the neighborhood where private investigator Patrick Kenzie and his partner and girlfriend Angie Gennaro see a televised plea by Helene McCready for the return of her abducted four-year-old daughter Amanda and the girl’s favorite doll, Mirabelle. In the immediate aftermath with the media attention this created, Amanda’s aunt Bea and uncle Lionel hire Kenzie and Gennaro to locate the girl.

(From left, Titus Welliver as Lionel McCready and Amy Madigan as Beatrice ‘Bea’ McCready in the Ben Affleck movie Gone Baby Gone).

Amy Madigan and Titus Welliver portray Bea McCready and Lionel McCready, the aunt and uncle to the missing girl. Casey Affleck and Michelle Monaghan portray Kenzie and Gennaro. Madeline O’Brien portrayed Amanda McCready to Amy Ryan‘s portrayal of Helene McCready. Using neighborhood connections to begin his own investigation, Patrick Kenzie is able to uncover information that points to Helene and her boyfriend, Ray, are drug mules for a drug lord from Haiti named Cheese. Further, Helene and Ray had stolen more than $130,000 from that operation.

(From left, Madeline O’Brien as Amanda McCready and Amy Ryan as Helene McCready in the Ben Affleck movie Gone Baby Gone).

It was in the course of meeting Captain Jack Doyle, as portrayed by Morgan Freeman, and police detectives Remy Bressant and Nick Poole that Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro share this information with the police to secure the police cooperation in sharing information that might make the information about Cheese’s syndicate useful. Ed Harris portrayed Detective Sergeant Remy Bressant as John Ashton portrayed Detective Nick Poole. Edi Gathegi portrayed Cheese.

(From left, John Ashton as Detective Nick Poole and Ed Harris as Detective Sergeant Remy Bressant in the Ben Affleck movie Gone Baby Gone).

The money path in-fact kickstarted a substantial path for the story. Without getting into details, suffice it to say that the tension and urgency one feels with a kidnapping case where the family is involved often is the opening setting for a thriller told in multiple parts. Learning what the story reveals, and then testing the worthiness of the investigative chops of the police and the private investigator, can shift the conflict for a compelling thriller.

(Edi Gathegi as Cheese in the Ben Affleck movie Gone Baby Gone).

The municipality of Everett, Massachusetts becomes relevant a couple of months after the Amanda McCready abduction with some information about Corwin Earle, as portrayed by Matthew Maher, becomes known. Where this leads a stalled investigation recasts many known facts with a depth that brings the movie full circle and saved the story underpinning the movie for me. That I am playing a bit loose with precisely how this is so makes for my suggestion for watching the movie.

(From left, actress Michelle Monaghan, director Ben Affleck, actor Casey Affleck and actress Amy Ryan at an event for the Ben Affleck movie Gone Baby Gone).

Gone Baby Gone works as a thriller that offers depth of action with a story that moves the story along fairly well for a movie that is a directorial debut. Without getting into giving away core plot points, the fact that the movie has two major movements that are needed to explain the initial raised conflict of the story makes for a bit of a disappointing turn for me. The underpinning values that motivated the resolution, honestly, didn’t help in that regard. The film was well acted overall, especially with the roles offered by Casey Affleck and Amy Ryan. I grant Gone Baby Gone as directed by Ben Affleck 3.5-stars on a scale of 1-to-5.

Matt – Saturday, February 12, 2022

Ben Affleck, Jeremy Renner and the film ‘The Town’

There were the towns of Charlestown and Boston in Massachusetts, serving as characters just as distinctly as the people in the movie The Town (2010). There was the notion of burglary, armored trucks, banks, and Fenway Park serving as places just as distinctly as there were funny notions of love and loyalty. Finally, there was the resolution of criminals fighting the notion of getting pinched, all tracing back to the source story for The Town, based on the book Prince of Thieves by Chuck Hogan.

(Slaine as Albert ‘Gloansy’ Magloan, Ben Affleck as Doug MacRay, Jeremy Renner as James Coughlin, and Owen Burke as Desmond Elden in The Town).

Ben Affleck plays Doug MacRay and Jeremy Renner plays James Coughlin, two members of a four member burglary set with Albert ‘Gloansy’ Magloan and Desmond Elden who rob banks and armored vehicles for money as a relatively practiced and efficient burglary ring having grown up in Charlestown. There is definite history among the group, which is revealed with suggested emotional depth through the film that at times is undersold by through the film. Renner is especially convincing in his role as Thomas Coughlin.

(Jon Hamm as FBI S.A. Adam Frawley, left, and Rebecca Hall as Claire Keesey in The Town).

After a burglary that includes the taking of a hostage, Doug MacRay takes a love interest in Claire Keesey, as played by Rebecca Hall. Seeing connections between this robbery and the organization run out of the flower business of a notorious criminal run by Fergus ‘Fergie’ Colm, FBI S.A. Adam Frawley and Dino Ciampa land pursue the criminals.

(Pete Postlethwaite as Fergus ‘Fergie’ Colm, top, and Dennis McLaughlin as Rusty in The Town).

Jon Hamm plays FBI S.A. Adam Frawley while Pete Postlethwaite plays Fergus ‘Fergie’ Colm. Rusty aids Colm in the delivery of messages as appropriate in service of the larger enterprise, which eventually turns to the large heist that The Town is leading towards. The backdrop of their illegal enterprise is the store front of the flower shop run by Colm.

(Left to right: Chris Cooper as Doug MacRay’s father Stephen MacRay, Blake Lively as James Coughlin’s sister and Doug MacRay’s baby mother Krista Coughlin, and Titus Welliver as Dino Ciampa, who grew up in Charlestown and serves as assistant to Adam Frawley in The Town).

Besides the tension of the burglary, pressure to pull another heist, and the pull of family for James and Krista Coughlin, Doug and Stephen MacRay, and the added love angle with varying degrees of loyalty, time spent in jail, and the depths that some have gone and will go for these different constructs, that the past as well as place pull on each of these run deep. Even FBI man Dino Ciampa bears baggage in this tale, and the resonance is there and communicated well. That many of these culminate in a crowning jewel to these points in the story of Boston, and specifically Fenway Park, reinforces the larger pathos of many of these points in the story.

(Ben Affleck as Doug MacRay and Jeremy Renner as James Coughlin outside Fenway Park in The Town).

The emotion and the questions underpinning this story are winners governing the telling of this story. The hardest part for me in giving the telling of this story through the cinematic telling of The Town is that I never believed Ben Affleck as Doug MacRay. It simply feels to me like Affleck wanted this role along with the telling of this story too much. The emotion of the character, as I felt, never really rang true for me. For a movie that I very much wanted to rate higher, I give The Town 3.50-stars on a scale of one-to-five.

Matt – Monday, December 16, 2019