2008 Woodie Awards
"Baby" an adult thriller
Seth Miller/Pounce Photo Editor
Issue date: 10/26/07 Section: in Review(s)
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Remember Ben Affleck, he was the best friend who was riding on Matt Damon's coat tails and was best friends with Kevin Smith.
He did blockbusters like "Armageddon" and "Pearl Harbor" as well as super box office failures like "Gigli" with his then fiancée Jennifer Lopez. He has become a sort of punch line about people rising to the top then making one bad decision after another.
Well, now he has come back after a few years as a co-writer and director with the new film "Gone Baby Gone."
I did not know which way this film could go. Affleck was the director but it had classic actors like Morgan Freeman and Ed Harris so it could go either way. I have to say this is an amazing film that goes through the entire range of the audience's emotions and sucks them in completely.
The film kicks of with a four year-old girl being kidnapped from her neglectful, drug-addicted mother.
As the police (represented by Freeman and Harris) continue to search for her and have no luck turning up any leads about where the girl is, the family turns to private investigators Patrick and Angie (Ben's brother Casey Affleck and Michelle Monaghan).
As the two dig deeper into the case, they discover a web of deceit, drugs, and more heinous crimes than either them can truly handle and what they believe is right is put to the test.
The synopsis I just gave barely describes how deep this movie goes. It is not some movie that is a clear-cut crime film but a layered and complex journey that treats its audience with intelligence and involves them in the story.
The dialogue between the characters is not some excuse to have characters prattle off one-liners but sound like actual exchanges between people who have been forced into this situation.
The plot moves in unexpected directions, as do the characters. The drama hits the emotional gut hard and all this pales in comparison to a twist that is almost impossible to see coming.
This is without a doubt my favorite movie of the year so far and I recommend it to anyone who wants to see a complex film that will leave you talking for days after. If this is just his first time as a director, we definitely have not seen the last of Ben Affleck, the director.
He did blockbusters like "Armageddon" and "Pearl Harbor" as well as super box office failures like "Gigli" with his then fiancée Jennifer Lopez. He has become a sort of punch line about people rising to the top then making one bad decision after another.
Well, now he has come back after a few years as a co-writer and director with the new film "Gone Baby Gone."
I did not know which way this film could go. Affleck was the director but it had classic actors like Morgan Freeman and Ed Harris so it could go either way. I have to say this is an amazing film that goes through the entire range of the audience's emotions and sucks them in completely.
The film kicks of with a four year-old girl being kidnapped from her neglectful, drug-addicted mother.
As the police (represented by Freeman and Harris) continue to search for her and have no luck turning up any leads about where the girl is, the family turns to private investigators Patrick and Angie (Ben's brother Casey Affleck and Michelle Monaghan).
As the two dig deeper into the case, they discover a web of deceit, drugs, and more heinous crimes than either them can truly handle and what they believe is right is put to the test.
The synopsis I just gave barely describes how deep this movie goes. It is not some movie that is a clear-cut crime film but a layered and complex journey that treats its audience with intelligence and involves them in the story.
The dialogue between the characters is not some excuse to have characters prattle off one-liners but sound like actual exchanges between people who have been forced into this situation.
The plot moves in unexpected directions, as do the characters. The drama hits the emotional gut hard and all this pales in comparison to a twist that is almost impossible to see coming.
This is without a doubt my favorite movie of the year so far and I recommend it to anyone who wants to see a complex film that will leave you talking for days after. If this is just his first time as a director, we definitely have not seen the last of Ben Affleck, the director.
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