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

Edward Norton, Willem Dafoe and the film ‘Motherless Brooklyn’

The film Motherless Brooklyn (2019) sets itself against the backdrop of 1950s New York City with a puzzle for lead character and private detective Lionel Essrog, as played by film director Edward Norton, in the starring role. Essrog battles Tourette’s Syndrome, and as a result is taken under the wing of Frank Minna, as played by Bruce Willis, from childhood.

(Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Laura Rose, left, and Edward Norton as Lionel Essrog in the film Motherless Brooklyn).

Frank Minna sets the story in motion with a shady proposition to extort more payment for his business from businessmen whose background Minna keeps deliberately vague. Using the photographic memory of Essrog to plant puzzles for a crime solving plan for the private detective, things turning sideways for that deal reveals a story that offers a degree of potential character depth that isn’t present in many contemporary movies.

(Bruce Willis as Frank Minna, left, Willem Dafoe as Paul, center, and Alec Baldwin as Moses Randolph in the film Motherless Brooklyn).

The pieces suggest involvement by characters Paul, as played by Willem Dafoe, Laura Rose as played by Gugu Mbatha-Raw, and Moses Randolph as played by Alec Baldwin. Randolph, a character written into the book Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem, resembles power broker Robert Moses as described in the book The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert Caro. The intrigue within the movie, a project brought to the movies due to Norton, includes intrigue that in part includes character Tony Vermonte as played by Bobby Cannavale.

(Bobby Cannavale as Tony Vermonte in the film Motherless Brooklyn).

The Rotten Tomatoes listing for the film Motherless Brooklyn rightly mentions the film takes the story from the “gin-soaked jazz clubs in Harlem to the hard-edged slums of Brooklyn”. The film aims for setting a mood, a place, and a feeling of corruption fighting that works if understood through the lens of those constructs, some of which Norton seems to have added into the film’s screenplay. The film largely worked for me due to this, which leads me to my rating of 3.75-stars on a scale of one-to-five.

Matt – Wednesday, November 20, 2019