REVIEW: GONE BABY GONE

While home from work yesterday I rented Ben Affleck's directorial debut, Gone Baby Gone. I haven't shared in all the Affleck hate that has gone on, he's earned enough good will in my eyes for his work in Kevin Smith's films, and I am one of the few people that didn't hate Daredevil. I thought he was one of the few things in that movie that didn't suck, and his passion for the character of Matt Murdock is obviously greater than Nicholas Cage's for Ghost Rider because one movie sucked a lot more than the other. Anyway, Ben Affleck deserves a lot of credit for his first film because while making a decent movie, he also managed several other noteworthy accomplishments.

1) He further cemented Casey Affleck's role as a leading man. With this film, The Assasination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, and the little seen Lonesome Jim, Casey seems to be headed towards a much better career than his brother. He's had a string of supporting roles since the brothers first became famous and has never really sold out like Ben has. Movies like this are what will continue to make him an actor to be taken seriously.

2) He made me extremely happy I didn't grow up in any part of Boston. Affleck shows a much less idealized version of the underbelly of Boston than Scorsese did in The Departed by using real people and shooting in real neighborhoods. These are poor, overweight, ugly people who are not normally put in front of a camera unless its the 10 o'clock news. They are also (mostly) the same kind of people in the world that I hate no matter where they're from except they have annoying Boston accents, thus making me hate them more. Let me elaborate, I don't hate them because they're poor or ugly and I don't hate all of them. I hate the ones that are like Amy Ryan's character, Helene McCready, a stupid irresponsible person with no regard for life's consequences. It just so happens that when you put a really heavy Bostonian accent on that type of person, my hate just flows out towards them.

3) He changed how people will think of Ben Affleck...well, how some people will. He's still going to have the J-Lo Jersey Girl/Gigli stigma, plus all the bad movies he made without Ms. Lopez, but for those who see Gone Baby Gone, Ben Affleck will be a director whose work is looked forward to. If he can follow up with a film just as strong, he has quite a career ahead of him.