{"id":642,"date":"2008-02-16T22:38:48","date_gmt":"2008-02-17T03:38:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/2008\/02\/16\/gone-baby-gone\/"},"modified":"2022-10-27T11:19:08","modified_gmt":"2022-10-27T15:19:08","slug":"gone-baby-gone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/gone-baby-gone\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben Affleck’s pervasively grim Gone Baby Gone"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Good ol’ Bahstuhn Cahtholick Ben Affleck is an all grown-up, big-boy director now, and lookit, he made himself a pretty decent movie. That said, Gone Baby Gone<\/em> is a big plate of grim, with side order of depressing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Affleck<\/a> makes excellent use of location footage and local color. And not surprising for a movie directed by an actor (recently, Julie Delpy’s 2 Days in Paris<\/em><\/a> and George Clooney’s Good Night and Good Luck<\/em>), Affleck privileges the characters and performances over the plot. We also see plenty of B-roll footage of the faces and voices of Bostoners on the streets, in the bars, and on local TV screens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Ben
How many times I gotta tell you, bro? I pahked the cahr down on the yahds.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Gone Baby Gone<\/em> is one of the first movies to poach some of the excellent acting talent premiered in HBO’s superb series The Wire<\/em>. Doubtless by accident, Michael Kenneth Williams and Amy Ryan both play characters diametrically opposed to their TV counterparts; Williams is a sardonic po-lice resolved to the corruption around him (compare and contrast with The Wire<\/em>‘s Omar, a parasite that feeds on the drug trade), and Ryan plays a coked-out winner of bad-mother-of-the-year, the exact opposite in every way (including accent) of her salt-of-the-earth B’more Port Authority po-lice on The Wire<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Ed
Pay no attention to my rug.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The few bad points to mention (other than the aforementioned pervasive grim tone), are Ed Harris’ inconsistent rug and a middle section papered over almost entirely by voiceover narration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Good ol’ Bahstuhn Cahtholick Ben Affleck is an all grown-up, big-boy director now, and lookit, he made himself a pretty decent movie. That said, Gone Baby Gone is a big plate of grim, with side order of depressing. Affleck makes excellent use of location footage and local color. And not surprising for a movie directed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4953,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,2],"tags":[1134,1132,1135,1136,1045,1125,1133],"class_list":["post-642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-4-stars","category-movies","tag-amy-ryan","tag-ben-affleck","tag-boston","tag-crime","tag-ed-harris","tag-gangster","tag-michael-kenneth-williams"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/02\/gone-baby-gone-feature.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa9lhB-am","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5756,"url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/the-accountant-is-a-brilliant-mind-meets-death-wish\/","url_meta":{"origin":642,"position":0},"title":"The Accountant is A Brilliant Mind meets Death Wish","author":"Chad Ossman","date":"October 14, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"You can imagine the elevator pitch: \"A Brilliant Mind meets Death Wish! Ben Affleck! Anna Kendrick!\" Director Gavin O\u2019Connor's The Accountant flirts with righteous anger at big business financial corruption, but wimps out by ultimately fingering a single venal individual with a hired army of faceless mercenaries. There\u2019s nothing engaging\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "3 Stars"","block_context":{"text":"3 Stars","link":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/category\/ratings\/3-stars\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Ben Affleck in The Accountant","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/accountant-jigsaw.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/accountant-jigsaw.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/accountant-jigsaw.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/accountant-jigsaw.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/accountant-jigsaw.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5287,"url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/netflix-triple-frontier-2019-movie-review\/","url_meta":{"origin":642,"position":1},"title":"Netflix’s Triple Frontier is aggro, macho horseshit","author":"Chad Ossman","date":"March 23, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"J.C. Chandor's Triple Frontier, Netflix's latest high-profile exclusive, aspires to be a serious Expendables. It draws surface-level inspiration from the likes of Heat and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, but forgets that you need more than square jaws and gun porn. There's some dramatic potential in the premise of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "2 Stars"","block_context":{"text":"2 Stars","link":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/category\/ratings\/2-stars\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Triple Frontier","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/triple-frontier.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/triple-frontier.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/triple-frontier.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/triple-frontier.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/triple-frontier.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":4311,"url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/exhaustively-exhausted-live-by-night\/","url_meta":{"origin":642,"position":2},"title":"Exhaustively exhausted: Ben Affleck’s Live by Night","author":"Chad Ossman","date":"August 10, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Has any topic been more exhaustively dramatized than Prohibition-era gangsters? 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Dick tale","author":"Chad Ossman","date":"June 23, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"When it comes to action cinema maestros like John Woo -- I can enjoy the the hyped-up action and weirdness of something like Face\/Off, but find that the extreme violence and gunplay can sometimes cross the line from escapism into being inhumane. Paycheck, scoring a mere PG-13 from the MPAA,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "2 Stars"","block_context":{"text":"2 Stars","link":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/category\/ratings\/2-stars\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Ben Affleck and Uma Thurman in Paycheck","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/paycheck.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/paycheck.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/paycheck.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/paycheck.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/paycheck.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":681,"url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/chasing-amy\/","url_meta":{"origin":642,"position":4},"title":"Kevin Smith’s Chasing Amy is his best film","author":"Chad Ossman","date":"March 7, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Chasing Amy is far and away Kevin Smith's best film, and not coincidentally his most heartfelt. It's not nothing to tell a universal guy's story while still featuring significant and sympathetic female characters. Yes, Chasing Amy is spectacularly profane and the characters are prone to giving extended on-the-nose speeches perfectly\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "4 Stars"","block_context":{"text":"4 Stars","link":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/category\/ratings\/4-stars\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Chasing Amy","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/03\/chasing-amy-feature.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/03\/chasing-amy-feature.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/03\/chasing-amy-feature.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/03\/chasing-amy-feature.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/03\/chasing-amy-feature.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":728,"url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/the-assassination-of-jesse-james-by-the-coward-robert-ford\/","url_meta":{"origin":642,"position":5},"title":"Roger Deakins is the true star of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford","author":"Chad Ossman","date":"March 28, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Had I seen The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford earlier, I might have included it among my Most Disappointing Films of 2007. 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