[Movie Review] GONE, BABY, GONE
Yowza. Ben Affleck, you fatheaded loser, you’ve finally, FINALLY given Matt Damon a reason to shake in his damn boots. People, do yourself a favor right now: DO NOT READ ANY SPOILERIFIC REVIEWS PRIOR TO SEEING THIS FILM. I promise you this review is NON-SPOILER, but you need to go into this thing like I did, with bare knowledge of the plot. You will thank me later.
If you’ve seen any trailers or commercials, you know the basic, BASIC plot outline: a little girl is kidnapped in Boston, and Patrick Kenzie(Casey Affleck), a private detective, and his partner/girlfriend Angie Gennaro(Michelle Monaghan) are called in by the family to help out in the case. That is all that I want you to know about this film before you set foot in the theater. That is all that I knew, and good God did I get my socks knocked off. I really REALLY cannot say a damn thing about the plot except this: there is a helluva lot more going on here than what my brief plot synopsis says. Just when you think the film is going to go one way, it sucker-punches you, the likes of which I haven’t seen since Million Dollar Baby. Not saying any more than that.
The performances range from meh to awesome here. Let’s get the meh out of the way first. Michelle Monaghan, who I didn’t like in The Heartbreak Kid, continues her streak of meh here. I don’t know what it is, but this woman just does not spark or shine when she is onscreen. She is simply there, taking up space. It’s not a problem with the character, it’s the actress. A stronger actress could have made a real impression here. You list off any talented actress, and they would have been better suited for this. The closest thing that I can compare her performance to is Katie Holmes in Batman Begins. It’s not that she completely sucks, but everyone around her is so damn good, and she is just not on their level. She stuck out, and not in a good way. Everyone else brought their A-game, while she’s sitting at a solid B- here.
Fortunately, she’s the only meh. Everyone else is ON here, particularly Casey Affleck, who I first noticed in The Obnoxiously Titled Jesse James Movie a few weeks back. The guy had me worried at first because he looks so damn young, and I thought that he might have been miscast, but he proved me wrong in the end. Not Oscar-caliber work here(Jesse James is his best bet for gold this year), but still very impressive work. When Morgan Freeman showed up onscreen as the police chief, I rolled my eyes and thought, “Affleck needed a benevolent older actor, so they threw Freeman in there”, but once again, I was surprised. Can’t get into specifics, but the guy was great. Ed Harris should have had his own movie ages ago, but hey, if he’s happy doing awesome supporting work all of the time, more power to him. Another standout is Amy Ryan as the kidnapped child’s mother, Helene. Just wait until you see what she does here. Might not be what you’re expecting from the commercials…
Even though I am gushing over this movie, I do have a whine. The beginning of the film is very slow, and I was wondering when it was going to pick up. This is a slow burn of a movie, but once it kicks in, it KICKS IN, so do yourself a favor and stick with it. I went from letting out yawns to literally being on the edge of my seat with my jaw hanging open. The performances are great and the story is so compelling(God, I wish I could spill the beans but I won’t do that to you!). Go and see this with some friends because I promise, you will want to talk about it when the credits roll.
8 Responses to “[Movie Review] GONE, BABY, GONE”
Nice review, Kristina.
Great film though.
Actually I thought Mongahan did a better job here than she’s done in all her other films. I agree with you that she’s blah in damn near everything, but at least here there was a hint of Vanilla. And being vanilla is at least a step up from blah
Chris, she may have been better here than in other work, but that is only because she was surrounded by so many kickass folks that they basically carried her ass through this. I was not impressed by her at all. I was just chatting with a guy in my Intro to Film class who saw this, and he had the same complaints that I did regarding her. He even had a casting suggestion: “Can you imagine how much better this thing would have been if they had somebody like Maria Bello in that role?”
Well, Maria Bello as long as she kept her clothes on. She has the nastiest body I’ve ever seen on screen. WTF happened to her chest? *Shudder*
Chris, I friggin’ love The Bello. She is one sexy mamma! On the subject of Monaghan. I really do rate her as an actress. I’ve liked her in a lot of things she’s done recently.
I haven’t seen GBG yet but you all know I’m a huge fan of the Patrick Kenzie novels. Because this is book 4 of 5, I’ve heard that they’ve had to work a lot to make the characters stand alone and not live by the huge amount of backstory that they’ve got over the course of the preceeding novels (which is ALOT).
From what I’ve been told it’s Monaghan’s character who suffers the most as a result of this!
I just want them to make DARKNESS TAKE MY HAND now with the same cast where required and someone like Brendan Gleeson or Brian Cox as the “villain”. That would be an awesome film!
yah. That’s cause you haven’t seen the nastiness that was her in The Cooler.
I have! I adored that film and her in it in all her naked glory! In fact, I covered in OFF THE SHELF – THE UNDERRATED GEMS edition!
Ah gazz. Well, seeing you’re one of such a stalwart nature, why don’t you take a gander at my Halloween list and see if you can’t add anything truly frightening? Kristina, I apologize for the pimpage.
No problem.
I wanted to tell you that if you loved her in The Cooler, you owe it to yourself to see This Film Is Not Yet Rated. There’s a section in that film where they talk about The Cooler originally getting an NC-17 since there was a close-up shot of William H Macy getting a faceful of her lady-cave.
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