GONE BABY GONE Reviewed 12/21/2007

It's a good thing for Martin Scorsese that this movie hadn't come out in 2006, or The Departed would never have won all those Oscars, for Gone Baby Gone is superior in just about every dimension: story empathy, Bostonian verisimilitude, Boston accents (Casey Affleck knows how to do it and Jack Nicholson didn't even bother to try), quality of acting, and direction. Indeed, were the director of Gone Baby Gone an unknown, directorial plaudits would be raining down -- but this director's name is Ben, and his last name is Affleck, and the scars of atrocious Gigli take years to heal.

Director Ben knows the Dennis Lehane (Mystic River) milieu of Chelsea, Everett, Dorcheter, and Revere, the tough ethnic towns that grip Boston's oily oceansides, and how to coax great performances from what an ensemble cast, led by his little brother Casey (Ocean's 11-12-13), a revelation as street-tough improbable private eye Patrick Kenzie – who maybe can help because he's from the neighborhood. Kenzie as wispy as his Departed alter ego Leo DiCaprio, but where DiCaprio's squinched and reddened face offered simulated menace, Affleck is utterly believable as a street tough with still eyes, flat voice, and no hesitation about pulling his gun and using it.

Nuanced and credible performances are delivered by:

• Michelle Monaghan (The Bourne Supremacy), as Patrick's live-in sleep-in detective partner Angie.
• Ed Harris (A Beautiful Mind) as a tough detective. No one does tough-outside better than old Ed.
• Amy Madigan (Field of Dreams) as bitter grandmother Bea McCready.
• John Ashton (Beverly Hills Cop) as, well, a Dorchester cop.
• Morgan Freeman (Evan Almighty) as an old Boston chief of missing child recovery. No one does gentle weariness better than old Morgan.

The real stars, though, are all the locals Ben cast to play Boston lowlifes, each of them completely convincing because neither their Boston accents nor their rough edges are faked – particularly Jill Quigg as Dottie, slouching skanky best friend to Bea's tramp daughter Helene (Amy Ryan), mother of abducted Amanda.

About the plot the less said the better, to preserve its absorbing suspense and because, in the cold light of a subway ride home, its logical fissures show. The film's strengths are its dilemmas, its mysteries, its performances, and its snatches of razor dialog. Arriving at Bea's Southie triple-decker to interview the distraught mother and her friend, gum-popping Dottie takes one look at Angie, who has said not a word so far, and says, "Ya still conceited, ahn't cha?"

© Copyright 2007 David Alexander Smith